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

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Guilt is anger directed at ourselves - at what we did or did not do. Resentment is anger directed at others - at what they did or did not do.

Anger | Character | Guilt | Resentment |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

For most utopians, the incremental approach is far too slow and unglamorous. It lacks cataclysmic drama. They want to save the world today and send out a great press release tomorrow morning. Feeding a hungry child tonight doesn’t draw a crowd.

Character | Tomorrow | World | Child |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

An honor-seeker is not really interested in self-improvement. He is only interested in gaining approval from others. Hence, he will disregard any fault he has if he knows that others will not notice it. On the other hand, a person who is able to forego his honor is able to focus on truth. His only thought is to do the right thing and he is willing to sacrifice his honor for his principles. Such a person will eventually receive honor, for he will constantly work on improving himself.

Character | Fault | Focus | Honor | Improvement | Principles | Receive | Right | Sacrifice | Self | Self-improvement | Thought | Truth | Will | Work | Approval | Fault | Thought |

David Hume

The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rousing this spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press; by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.

Ambition | Character | Defense | Dread | Freedom | Genius | Learning | Liberty | Nothing | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Wit | Ambition |

Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL

Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face.

Character | Misfortune | Soul |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.

Character | Charity | Eternity | Grace | Present | Soul | Time |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

We cannot presume to know what’s best for another soul. We have no way of knowing where that soul has been, what road it has traveled, what its secrets are, and what lessons it needs in order to attain spiritual awareness.

Awareness | Character | Knowing | Order | Soul |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Consumption, celebrity and the quest for perfection in this world are all subject to the law of diminishing returns: each successive acquisition and achievement will mean less than the one before. Diminishing returns are finally leading to diminished expectations about the promise of finding happiness without caring for our souls. Perhaps we are now ready to reject the hucksters of materialisms that have lured us down so many dead ends, and start again on the road that will lead us back to God.

Achievement | Character | Ends | God | Law | Perfection | Promise | Will | World | Happiness |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Each is driven by the most relentless, persistent instinct man possesses: the instinct for meaning, transcendence, wholeness and truth... Reality is a continuum that extends from thinking to the denser world of physical form.

Character | Instinct | Man | Meaning | Reality | Thinking | Truth | Wholeness | World |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

The soul is where you do the work, where you make the changes.

Character | Soul | Work |

William James

The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is noninterference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.

Character | Happy | Learn |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

An honor-seeker will not be a truth-seeker... Only if a person talks and acts according to his ideals, independently of what others think of him, will he gain the respect of others.

Character | Honor | Ideals | Respect | Truth | Will | Respect | Think |

Ikinilik NULL

The only thing of value in a man is the soul. That is why it is the soul that is given everlasting life, either in the Land of the Sky or in the Underworld. The soul is man’s greatest power; it is the soul that makes us human, but how it does so we do not know. Our flesh and blood, our body, is nothing but an envelope about our vital power.

Body | Character | Land | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Power | Soul | Value |

Washington Irving

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.

Character | Wishes |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person... Love is an attitude which determines how we relate to the world... Love is an activity of our spirit... Loving others is impossible until we love ourselves.

Character | Love | Relationship | Spirit | World |

William Dean Howells

It is the still voice that the soul heeds; not the deafening blasts of doom.

Character | Soul |

Yitzchok Hutner

A person who tries to keep everything about himself hidden will not have close friends. Building a close relationship with others requires self-disclosure.

Character | Relationship | Self | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

From their own experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.

Character | Experience | History | Men | Learn |

David Hume

We may begin with considering a-new the nature and force of sympathy. The minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations, nor can any one be actuated by any affection, of which all others are not, in some degree, susceptible. As in strings equally bound up, the motion of one communicates itself to the rest; so all the affections readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature.

Character | Feelings | Force | Men | Nature | Rest | Sympathy |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The beatitude into which the enlightened soul is delivered is something quite different from pleasure... Blessedness depends on non-attachment and selflessness, therefore can be enjoyed without satiety and without revulsion; is a participation in eternity, and therefore remains itself without diminution or fluctuation.

Blessedness | Character | Eternity | Pleasure | Satiety | Soul |