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

Ezra Taft Benson

It’s a great blessing to live in America. It’s a great blessing to have the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms which are ours today. I have seen people, thousands of them, who have lost the freedom which is ours, where they can no longer meet, as we meet here this morning, and express themselves as they see fit, where they no longer have freedom of movement, freedom to select their own jobs, their own educational opportunities, freedom to speak their minds, to write what they wish – freedom of enterprise. In many parts of the world today these rich blessings of freedom no longer exist.

Blessings | Destiny | Dignity | Eternal | Family | Glory | Law | Lord | Receive | Time | Wife |

Ezra Taft Benson

The Founding Fathers understood the principle that “righteousness exalteth a nation”, and helped to bring about one of the greatest systems ever used to govern men. But unless we continue to seek righteousness and preserve the liberties entrusted to us, we shall lose the blessings of heaven. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” The price of freedom is also to live in accordance with the commandments of God. The early Founding Fathers thanked the Lord for His intervention in their behalf. They saw His hand in their victories in battle and believed strongly that He watched over them.

Blessings | Dignity | Freedom | Ideals | Individual | Mankind | Mind | Nations | People | Principles | Respect | Respect |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Speak against unconscious oppression, speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, speak against bonds.

Little | People | Smile | Space |

Gustave Flaubert

Then, noticing on one of the shelves a volume of Hugo and another of Lamartine, he broke out into sarcastic criticisms of the romantic school. These poets had neither good sense nor correctness, and, above all, were not French! He plumed himself on his knowledge of the language, and analysed the most beautiful phrases with that snarling severity, that academic taste which persons of playful disposition exhibit when they are discussing serious art.

Space |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

Death | Life | Life |

Italian Proverbs

The chamber-bell is the worst sound one have in his ears.

Journey | Method | Space |

Italian Proverbs

Thank you, pretty pussy, was the death of my cat.

Death | Good | Hypothesis | Individual | Phenomena | Sense | Loss |

Italian Proverbs

The loquacity of fools is a lecture to the wise.

Death |

Italian Proverbs

When the head aches all the members languish.

Death | Order |

Italian Proverbs

Very seldom does any good thing arise but there comes an ugly phantom of a caricature of it.

Birth | Childhood | Death | Irony | Paradox | Religion | Time | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Who has no children does not know what love is.

Hope | Order | Space |

Italian Proverbs

The tongue goes to where the tooth aches.

Model | Office | Space | Thinking | Old |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And Gandalf said: 'This is your realm, and the heart of the greater realm that shall be. The Third Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order it's beginning and to preserve what must be preserved. For though much has been saved, much must now pass away; and the power of the Three Rings also is ended. And all the lands that you see, and those that lie round about them, shall be dwellings of Men. For the time comes of the Dominion of Men, and the Elder Kindred shall fade or depart.

Freedom | Guarantee | Individual | Labor | Reality | Slavery | Work |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

As I lay in prison, Sam, I tried to remember the Brandywine, and Woody End, and The Water running through the mill at Hobbiton. But I can't see them now.

Age | Control | Education | Need | Old age | Poverty | Slavery | World | Old |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey raincurtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Dirty | Slavery |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I'm in the business of providing people with secondary satisfactions. It wouldn't have done me much good if they had all written their own plays, would it?

Ability | Change | Experience | Important | Myth | Qualities | Reading | Space | Time |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

But it is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place.

Chance | Good | Little | Reason | Rest | Slavery | Will | Woman |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And Aragorn the King Elessar wedded Arwen Undomiel in the City of the Kings upon the day of Midsummer, and the tale of their long waiting and labors was come to fulfillment.

Children | Property | Slavery | Old |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.

Business | Children | Debt | Extreme | Important | Question | Slavery | Business | Understand |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me, for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan.

Rights | Slavery | Work | World |