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

Italian Proverbs

The right man comes at the right time.

Government | Looks | Means | Opportunity | Safe | Worry | Government | Think |

Italian Proverbs

Too many chiefs, not enough warriors.

Absence | Atheism | History | Means | Prayer | Public | Research | Rule |

Italian Proverbs

Who by himself can do anything, do not wait for others to do.

Commitment | Good | Means | Mystery | Object | Religion |

Italian Proverbs

The well-fed man does not believe in hunger.

Means | Public | System |

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

And suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world

Means |

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

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.

Abuse | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Means | Men | Problems | Suicide | Trust | Work | World | Learn |

Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

Belief | Compassion | Desire | God | Human race | Love | Means | Race | Will | God |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.

Appreciation | Art | Faith | Heart | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Mind | People | Religion | Appreciation | Art |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy.

Compassion | Intolerance | Meaning | Means | People | Pity | Practice | Religion | Time | World |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief, that can rise to delight, that, thank Heaven, nobody is reporting in this fashion on us.

Ambiguity | Better | Compassion | Enemy | Failure | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Little | Means | People | Religion | Sense | Tradition | Understanding | Work | Failure |

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

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring? passed out of all knowledge.

Debt | Enough | Family | Labor | Land | Means | Money |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

It had the old double keyboard, an entirely different set of keys for capitals and figures, so that the paper seemed a long way off, and the machine was as big and solid as a battle cruiser. Typing was then a muscular activity. You could ache after it. If you were not familiar with those vast keyboards, your hand wandered over them like a child lost in a wood. The noise might have been that of a shipyard on the Clyde. You would no more have thought of carrying one of those grim structures as you would have thought of travelling with a piano.

Bible | God | Means | Personality | God | Bible |

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

And you, Ringbearer' she said, turning to Frodo. 'I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.' She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it and rays of white light sprang from her hand. 'In this phial,' she said,' is caught the light of Earendil's star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful.

Little | Means | Opposition | Research |

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

I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo.

Hero | Woman |

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

He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

Innovation | Means | Need |