Great Throughts Treasury

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

Reflection

"For a dear bargain is always annoying, particularly on this account, that it is a reflection on the judgment of the buyer." - Pliny the Younger, full name Casus Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo NULL

"We, undisciplined in discernment of the inward, knowing nothing of it, run after the outer, never understanding that it is the inner which stirs us; we are [like] one who sees his own reflection but not realizing whence it comes goes in pursuit of it." - Plotinus NULL

"Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL

"On the other hand, how different and much more faithful a reflection of limitless visions is the language of an outstanding modern scientist, Sir Edmund Whittaker, member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, when he speaks of the above-mentioned inquiries into the age of the world: "These different calculations point to the conclusion that there was a time, some nine or ten billion years ago, prior to which the cosmos, if it existed, existed in a form totally different from anything we know, and this form constitutes the very last limit of science. We refer to it perhaps not improperly as creation. It provides a unifying background, suggested by geological evidence, for that explanation of the world according to which every organism existing on the earth had a beginning in time. Were this conclusion to be confirmed by future research, it might well be considered as the most outstanding discovery of our times, since it represents a fundamental change in the scientific conception of the universe, similar to the one brought about four centuries ago by Copernicus."" - Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL

"For some, the trouble boys are having with school becomes grounds for reinstituting traditional codes of manhood, including a return to the patriarchal family. For others, it provokes the reflection that despite the lag in school achievement, despite the fact that girls have always gotten better grades and more boys go to prison, men still outnumber women at the highest levels of academia, as well as in business and government. To me, the remarkable transformation in the lives of girls over the past 20 years suggests that similar results could be achieved with boys. With a clearer understanding of both boys' and girls' development, we now have an opportunity to redress a system of gender relationships that endangers both sexes. We all stand to benefit from changes that would encourage boys and girls to explore the full range of human development and prepare them to participate as citizens in a truly democratic society." - Carol Gilligan

"A little reflection soon shows how inconceivable it is really to love others (not merely to need them), if one cannot love oneself as one really is. And how could a person do that if, from the very beginning, he has had no chance to experience his true feelings and to learn to know himself? For the majority of sensitive people, the true self remains deeply and thoroughly hidden. But how can you love something you do not know, something that has never been loved? So it is that many a gifted person lives without any notion of his or her true self. Such people are enamored of an idealized, conforming, false self. They will shun their hidden and lost true self, unless depression makes them aware of its loss or psychosis confronts them harshly with that true self, whom they now have to face and to whom they are delivered up, helplessly, as to a threatening stranger. In the following pages I am trying to come closer to the origins of this loss of the self. While doing so, I shall not use the term narcissism. However, in my clinical descriptions, I shall speak occasionally of a healthy narcissism and depict the ideal case of a person who is genuinely alive, with free access to the true self and his authentic feelings. I shall contrast this with narcissistic disorders, with the true self's solitary confinement within the prison of the false self. This I see less as an illness than as tragedy, and it is my aim in this book to break away from judgmental, isolating, and therefore discriminating terminology." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people--first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. " - Albert Einstein

"Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exist for other people." - Albert Einstein

"Man is the individualized expression or reflection of God imaged forth and made manifest in bodily form. How is it, then, I hear it asked, that man has the limitations that he has, that he is subject to fears and forebodings, that he is liable to sin and error, that he is the victim of disease and suffering? There is but one reason. He is not living, except in rare cases here and there, in the conscious realization of his own true Being, and hence of his own true Self." - Ralph Waldo Trine

"It is necessary to seek the company of holy men, practice prayer, and listen to the instruction of the guru. These purify the mind. Then one sees God. Dirt can be removed from water by a purifying agent. Then one sees one's reflection in it. One cannot see one's face in a mirror if the mirror is covered with dirt." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Conformism, imitativeness, submission to rules and to teachings is the writer's capital crime. The work of a writer must be not only the reflection, but the larger reflection of his personality. The only excuse that a man has for his writing is to write about himself, to reveal to others the sort of world that is mirrored in his own glass; his only excuse is to be original; he must speak of things not yet spoken of in a form not yet formulated. He must create his own aesthetics " - Remy de Gourmont

"There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world." -

"Literally, no man ever sees himself as others see him. No photograph or reflection ever gives us the same slant on ourselves that others see. It has often been proved on the witness stand that no two people ever see the same accident precisely the same way. We see through different eyes and from different angles. But if we could see things as other people see them, we could come closer to knowing why they do what they do and why they say what they say." - Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans

"Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV, it's a shame more people don't switch over to it." - Robert M. Pirsig

"One who possesses patience continues bestowing goodness after being insulted or witnessing sin, exactly as before. He does not withhold his kindness from the one who insulted him or has sinned. This requires the ability to think precisely, to make fine distinction between subtleties. Only such a deep thinker will realize that true patience demands that he continue bestowing goodness and kindness without any change even when a response to the insult or sin is called for. A measured response should come, but never amid the abandonment of the goodness and kindness that is the very physical and spiritual sustenance of the other individual. " - Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

"The feeling of it [the mysterium tremendum] may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes it ‘profane’, non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy. It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of—whom or what? In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures." - Rudolf Otto

"A nervous, that is to say excitable child should be treated differently as regards environment from one who is quiet and lethargic. everything comes into consideration, from the color of the room and various objects that are generally around the child, to the color of the clothes in which he is dressed...An excitable child should be surrounded by and dressed in red and reddish-yellow colors, whereas for a lethargic child one should have recourse to the blue or bluish-green shades of color. For the important thing is the complimentary color, which is created within the child. In the case of red it is green, and in the case of blue orange-yellow" - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition" - Rudyard Kipling

"If you are a man of learning, read something classic, a history of the human struggle and don't settle for mediocre verse." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"The paths are many, but the goal is one. Don't you see how many roads there are to the Kaaba? For some the road starts from Rome, for others from Syria, from Persia, or China; some come by the sea from India and Yemen. If you are considering different roads, the variety is immense and the difference infinite; if you consider the goal, however, they are all harmony and are one. The hearts of each and every one are fixed on the Kaaba… Each heart has an overriding attachment-a passionate love for the Kaaba-and in that there is no room for contradiction. That attachment to the Kaaba cannot be called 'impiety' or 'faith': it is not mingled with the various paths we have mentioned. Once the travelers arrive at the Kaaba, all quarreling and vicious squabbling about the different paths-this person saying to that You're wrong! You're a blasphemer! and the other shouting back in kind-simply vanish; they realize that what they were all fighting about was the roads only, and that there goal was one." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"The wave of At-last came along and caulked the body's ship; when the ship is wrecked once more, the turn of union and encounter will come." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"This phantom world gave you false signs but you turned from the illusion and journeyed to the land of truth." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?" - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"I believe that you can combine biblical principles and good business practices. I testified before Congress…on how to be honest and successful at the same time." - S. Truett Cathy

"You should strive in your prayer for a pure conscience, a will that is wholly with God, and a mind truly set upon Him." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL

"Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Pity is not natural to man. Children and savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; but we have not pity unless we wish to relieve his. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and, finding it late, bid the coachman make haste, when he whips his horses I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish him to desist; no, sir; I wish him to drive on." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"True majorities, in a TV-dominated and anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites and flashing lights—and I am not against supplying such lures if they draw children into even a transient concern with science. But every classroom has one [Oliver] Sacks, one [Eric] Korn, or one [Jonathan] Miller, usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature, and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity. Do not the one in fifty deserve their institutions as well—magic places, like cabinet museums, that can spark the rare flames of genius?" - Stephan Jay Gould

"Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and angelical frames; he loves to take off the edge of our spirits from God; he acts but after the old rate; he from the first envied God an obedience from man, and envied man the felicity of communion with God; he is unwilling God should have the honor of worship, and that we should have the fruit of it; he hath himself lost it, and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it; and being subtle, he knows how to make impressions upon us suitable to our inbred corruptions, and assault us in the weakest part. He knows all the avenues to get within us (as he did in the temptation of Eve), and being a spirit, he wants not a power to dart them immediately upon our fancy; and being a spirit, and therefore active and nimble, he can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off." - Stephen Charnock

"In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole of human knowledge, including science, to be their field and discussed questions such as: Did the universe have a beginning? However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, science became too technical and mathematical for the philosophers, or anyone else except a few specialists. Philosophers reduced the scope of their inquiries so much that Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century, said, The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language. What a comedown from the great tradition of philosophy from Aristotle to Kant!" - Stephen Hawking

"All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. humility gives it its power. if you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. if you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them." - Stephen Mitchell

"Triviality is evil - triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil." - Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund

"The great man has more of human nature than other men organized in him." - Theodore Parker

"Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson

"In war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them" - Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's study or a contemplative cell. It is a body of oral messages, announcements, prophecies, promulgations, recitals, histories, songs of praise, lamentations, etc., which are meant either to be uttered or at least read aloud, or chanted, or sung, or recited in a community convoked for the purpose of a living celebration." - Thomas Merton

"Will is an ambiguous word, being sometimes put for the faculty of willing; sometimes for the act of that faculty; besides other meanings. But “volition” always signifies the act of willing, and nothing else." - Thomas Reid

"It is an objective fact whether a certain experience is pleasurable or unpleasurable, and relatedly whether a particular conscious individual is presently experiencing something pleasurable or painful. It is an objective fact, so we may put it, about a subjective state." - Timothy Sprigge, fully Timothy L.S. Sprigge

"The texture of experience is prior to everything else." - Willem de Kooning

"Blindness is never bashful, for the one simple reason that that blindness cannot see." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

"I am sure I do not know why the beauty of Monte Carlo should not satisfy more than it does. The bluest of all seas is nowhere bluer than when you see it between the marble balustrades of the long white terrace before the casino, palms are nowhere greener than in that high garden which the mountain screen from every unkind breath, no colours could be more rich and various than those of the red and purple Alps that tower up behind the town, on whose summit such violent thunderstorms gather and break. But for me, at least, there was not at all the pleasure I had anticipated in this dazzling white and blue, these feathery palms and ragged Alps. ...I had a continual restless feeling that there was nothing at all real about Monte Carlo; that the sea was too blue to be wet, the casino too white to be anything but pasteboard, and that from their very greenness the palms must be cotton... in atmosphere and spirit the entire kingdom of Monaco is an extension of the casino." - Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather

"Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you that you may be my poem I whisper with my lips close to your ear I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha

"I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"The tendency is to blame boredom on the environment. "This town is really dull" or "What a boring speaker." The particular town or speaker is never dull, it is you experiencing the boredom, and you can eliminate it by doing something else with your mind or energy at that moment." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"What we know as 'life' is the analytical realization in the seriality of time of our eternal reality." - Wei Wu Wei, pen name for Terence James Stannus Gray

"This massive ascendancy of corporate power over democratic process is probably the most ominous development since the end of World War II, and for the most part the free world seems to be regarding it as merely normal." - Wendell Berry

"Nature and Passion are powerful, but they are also full of grief. True happiness would have the calm and order of bourgeois routine without its utilitarian ignobility and boredom." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden