THE GREAT THOUGHTS
George Seldes, compiler
From Abelard to Zola, from ancient Greece to contemporary America, the ideas that have shaped the history of the world.
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| 1 |
"There is only one science, love; only one riches, love; only one policy, love….love is all the law, and the prophets." Anatole France (1844-1924), French author, 'Epigrams'
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| 2 |
"Love a man even in his sin for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth." Fyodor Dostoyevski (1821-1881), Rusian novelist, 'The Brothers Karamazov', Bk. VI, Ch. 3
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| 3 |
"The question was once put to him [Aristotle], how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, 'As we should wish our friends to behave to us.'" Diogenes Laertius (fl. 200 ad), Biographer of Greek philosophers, 'Aristotle'
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| 4 |
"Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leads the way." Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), American theologian
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"Confucius replied….'wisdom, compassion and courage – these are the three universally recognized moral qualities of man." Tze-sze (ca. 335-288 bce), Chinese philosopher, grandson of Confucius, 'The Golden Mean of Tze-sze'
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"Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself." Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, 'Ethics'
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| 7 |
"Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the whole world." Antoine DeSaint-Exupery (1900-1944), French author, 'Wind, Sand, and Stars'
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| 8 |
"What's freedom for? To know eternity." Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), American poet, 'I Knew A Woman'
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| 9 |
"To understand everything is to hate nothing." Romain Rolland (1866-1944), French novelist, 'Jean-Christophe'
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| 10 |
"All finite things reveal infinitude." Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), American poet, 'The Far Field'
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| 11 |
"I worship Christ, I worship Jehovah, I worship Pan, I worship Aphrodite…I want them all, all the gods. They are all God." D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), British writer, 'The Letters of D. H. Lawrence'
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| 12 |
"The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time and time again given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness and Beauty." Albert Einstein (1879-1955), 'The World As I See It'
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| 13 |
"He [God] is invisible, although seen; incomprehensible, although revealed in grace, unfathomable, although fathomed by the human senses." Tertullian (ca. 160-240 ad), Carthagenian-born Christian author, 'Apologeticus'
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| 14 |
"No myth of miraculous creation is so marvelous as the fact of man's evolution." Robert Briffault (1876-1948), British surgeon and anthropoligist, 'Rational Evolution'
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| 15 |
"I feel compelled to look for a first Cause." Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English biologist, letter to Rev. J. Fordyce, July 7, 1879
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| 16 |
"From the intrinsic evidence of his creation the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician." Sir James Jeans (1877-1946), British scientist, 'The Mysterious Universe'
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| 17 |
"Morality will conquer war, even as it has conquered human sacrifices, slavery, feuds, head-hunting and cannibalism." Max Nordau (1849-1923), German physician, author 'Morals and the Evolution of Man'
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| 18 |
"To fear love is to fear life." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British mathematician, philosopher, 'Marriage and Morals'
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| 19 |
"All men know in their very earliest years that beside the good of their animal personality, there is another, a better, a good in life, which is not only independent of the gratification of the appetites of the animal personality, but on the contrary, the greater the renunciation of the welfare of the animal personality the greater the good becomes…This feeling…is known to all. This feeling is love." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian author, 'On Life and Essays on Religion'
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| 20 |
"I believe in God, whom I understand as Spirit, as Love, as the Source of all." Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian author, 'Reply to Synod's Edict of Excommunication'
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| 21 |
"In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality." George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish-born American philosopher, 'Reason in Common Sense'
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| 22 |
"God is a verb, not a noun." R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect, writer, 'No More Secondhand God'
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| 23 |
"Morality is the observance of the rights of others." Dagobert D. Runes (1902-1982), American philosopher, 'Treasury of World Literature'
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| 24 |
"Creativity cannot exist without the feminine principle, and I am sure God is not merely male or female but He-She – our Father-Mother God." Margaret Walker (b. 1915), American teacher
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"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918), American historian
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We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
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- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
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