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

Lillian Hellman, fully Lillian Florience "Lily" Hellman

I didn’t know what she was saying when she moved her lips in a Baptist church or a Catholic cathedral or, less often, in a synagogue, but it was obvious that God could be found anywhere.

Church | God | God |

Joseph Jacobs

For 3,500 years, Jews have been telling themselves, their children, and the rest of the world: Be good. Be kind. Be honest. Be ethical. Be moral. It is the most revolutionary message in human history.

Children | Good | History | Rest | World |

Karl Rahner

Only one thing can give unity in the Church on the human level: the love which allows another to be different even when it does not understand him.

Church | Love | Unity | Understand |

Karl Barth

History is the display of the supposed advantages of power and intelligence which some men possess over others, of the struggle for existence hypocritically described by ideologists as the struggle for justice and freedom, of the ebb and flow of old and new forms of human righteousness, each vying with the rest in the solemnity and triviality... Yet one drop of eternity is of greater weight than a vast ocean of finite things.

Display | Eternity | Existence | Freedom | History | Intelligence | Justice | Men | Power | Rest | Righteousness | Struggle | Old |

Louisa May Alcott

My parents never bound us to any church but taught us that the love of goodness was the love of God, the cheerful doing of duty made life happy, and that the love of one’s neighbor in its widest sense was the best help for oneself. Their lives showed us how lovely this simple faith was, how much honor, gratitude and affection it brought them, and what a sweet memory they left behind.

Church | Duty | Faith | God | Gratitude | Happy | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Parents | Sense |

Kahlil Gibran

Love joins our present with the past and the future... Love is a divine knowledge that enables men to see as much as the gods... Love is a blinding mist that keeps the soul from discerning the secret of existence, so that the heart sees only trembling phantoms of desire among the hills, and hears only echoes of cries from voiceless valleys... Love is the rest of the body in the quiet of the grave, the tranquillity of the soul in the depth of Eternity... And so, all who passed spoke of Love as the image of their hopes and frustrations, leaving it a mystery as before.

Body | Desire | Eternity | Existence | Future | Grave | Heart | Knowledge | Love | Men | Mystery | Past | Present | Quiet | Rest | Soul | Tranquility |

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

People don’t come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.

Church | God | People |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

The home is the empire! There is no peace more delightful than one's own fireplace.

Peace |

Michael Toms and Justine Willis Toms

The idea that work is "over here" and spiritual life is "over there" prevents us from engaging life to the fullest. We imagine that we are marking time at work and that life begins when we arrive home in the evening or on the weekends. The result is that work is not fully integrated into our days, and we wind up living at the margins of our lives.

Life | Life | Time | Work |

Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL

The way of truth is like a great road. It is not difficult to know it. The evil is only that men will not seek it. Do you go home and search for it?

Evil | Men | Search | Truth | Will |

Marsilio Ficino

The convivium is rest from labours, release from cares and nourishment of genius; it is the demonstration of love and splendour, the food of good will, the seasoning of friendship, the leavening of grace and the solace of life... Everything should be seasoned with the salt of genius and illumined by the rays of mind and manners.

Genius | Good | Grace | Life | Life | Love | Manners | Mind | Rest | Will |

Martin Luther

The Church owes its life to the word of promise through faith, and is nourished and preserved by this same word.

Church | Faith | Life | Life | Promise |

Matthew Arnold

The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry... More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.

Creed | Dogma | Future | Illusion | Life | Life | Mankind | Philosophy | Poetry | Race | Religion | Rest | Science | Time | Tradition | Will | World |

Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL

Love is the high nobility of heaven, the peaceful home of man. To lack love, when nothing hinders us, is to lack wisdom.

Heaven | Love | Man | Nobility | Nothing | Wisdom |

Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.

Freedom | Rest |

Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.

God | Loneliness | Money | Poverty | Rest | Will | God |

Nora Ephron

When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Life | Life | Rest |

Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.

God | Love | Trust | Will | World |