Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Ester and Jerry Hicks

It is so easy to make the finding of the path so much more complicated than it really needs to be because from within you know if you have been willing to tune yourself to feeling good, no matter what, so that that's what matters most to you...then in your natural quest for joy you'll just keep being on your path...your path unfolds.

Attention | Example | Practice | Will | Value |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

Reach for a better feeling thought.

Future | Goals | Good |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

What anyone else has or does not have, has nothing to do with you.

Beginning | Thought | Thought |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

Who you really are is Non-Physical Energy focused in a physical body, knowing full well that all is well and always has been, and always will be. You are here to experience the supreme pleasure of concluding new desires, and then of bringing yourself into vibrational alignment with the new desires that you've concluded, for the purpose of taking thought beyond that which it has been before.

Good | Important | Nothing | Reason | Will |

Esther Perel

In order to be one, you must first be two.

Commitment | Love | Marriage | Relationship | Security | Story | Will | Writing |

Ethel Barrymore

There is as much difference between the stage and the film as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both.

People | Taste |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

The beast, like all of you, chooses freedom first. And if ever the physical condition becomes less than joyful, the beast, if left to himself, will re-emerge into Non-Physical.

Action | Energy | Enough | Time | Will | World |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

You are on the leading edge of thought, taking thought beyond that which it has been before.

Attention | World |

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

And the great question for mankind is what is to be loved or hated next, whenever and old love or fear has lost its hold.

Day | Need | Practice | Question | Time | Teacher |

Eugene Peterson

A community of faith flourishes when we view each other with this expectancy, wondering what God will do today in this one, that one.

Bride | Good | History |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room.

Means | Mind | Psychology | Will |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

The child was diseased at birth, stricken with a hereditary ill that only the most vital men are able to shake off. I mean poverty - the most deadly and prevalent of all diseases.

Beauty | Books | Freedom | Joy | Mystery | Need | Beauty |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

So we must try to distinguish between two questions that are often confused in this discussion. Is the existence of God a truth demonstrable by natural reason, so that it is knowable and known with certitude? Without a doubt the answer to this first question is “yes.” The second question is whether everyone can consider his natural reason infallible in its effort to demonstrate rationally the existence of God? The merciless criticism of the proofs of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Descartes, Malebranche and many others are timely reminders of the need for modesty. Are we keener philosophers than they? That is the whole question. Modesty is not skepticism. So we should not be afraid to let our mind pursue the proof of God’s existence until we reach the greatest possible certitude, but we should keep intact our faith in the word that reveals this truth to the most simple folk as well as to the most learned. Here it is well to meditate on the very complex and nuanced passage in ST 2-2.2.4: “Is it necessary to believe what can be proved by natural reason?” The answer is in the affirmative: “We must accept by faith not only what is above reason but also what can be known by reason.”

Beginning | Body | Experience | Giving | Life | Life | Looks | Philosophy | Wisdom | Learn |

Eugene Peterson

You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.

Guidance | Habit | Need | Time | Understanding | Wisdom | Guidance |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Hence arises a perception which represents them to us as distant and limited; and which consequently implies the idea of some extension.

Attention | Memory | Public |

Eudora Welty

She knew now to look slowly and carefully at a face; she was convinced that it was impossible to see it all at once.

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

I distinguish three sorts of signs: 1. Accidental signs, or the objects which particular circumstances have connected with some of our ideas, so as to render the one proper to revive the other. 2. Natural signs, or the cries which nature has established to express the passions of joy, of fear, or of grief, 3. Instituted signs, or those which we have chosen ourselves, and bear only an arbitrary relation to our ideas.

Distinction | Distinguish | Experience | Impression | Play | Rest |

Eudora Welty

People are mostly layers of violence and tenderness wrapped like bulbs, and it is difficult to say what makes them onions or hyacinths.

Understand |

Eugene Peterson

But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing.

Attention | Church | People |

Eugene Peterson

The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.

Attention | Glory | Irony | People | Prayer | Scripture |