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

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

In plain words; now that Britain has told the world she has the H-Bomb, she should announce as early as possible that she has done with it, that she proposes to reject, in all circumstances, nuclear warfare. This is not pacifism. There is no suggestion here of abandoning the immediate defence of this island...No, what should be abandoned is the idea of deterrence-by-threat-of-retaliation. There is no real security in it, no decency in it, no faith, hope, nor charity in it.

Earth | Experience | Need | Revolution | Sacred | Will | Value |

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

Every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.

Man |

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

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Curiosity | Error | Experience | Important | Life | Life | Nothing | Past | Pleasure | Price | Pride | Sense | Story | Teach | Time | Waiting | Will | Wrong |

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

Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is. There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. It belonged to a butcher on the Stratford Road, I think. One day they cut it down. They didn't do anything with it: the log just lay there. I never forgot that.

Existence | Hope | Important | Man | Woman |

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. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game: the heavy financial interests... the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press... but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt, and it has gone out and conquered the world.

Compassion | Effort | God | History | Hope | Little | Need | People | Policy | Religion | Right | Will | God |

J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

(a) That life had a supernatural origin, (b) That it originated from inorganic materials, and (c) That life is a constituent of the Universe and can only arise from pre-existing life. The first hypothesis, he said, should be taken seriously, and he would proceed to do so. From the fact that there are 400,000 species of beetle on this planet, but only 8,000 species of mammals, he concluded that the Creator, if he exists, has a special preference for beetles, and so we might be more likely to meet them than any other type of animal on a planet which would support life.

Belief | Think |

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

Don't ever laugh at live Dragons, Bilbo you fool!

Change | Reason | Relationship |

Italian Proverbs

With patience you go beyond knowledge.

God | Harm | Ignorance | Power | Time | Truth | Will | Witness | God |

Italian Proverbs

You surround your vineyard with thorns - place doors and locks on your mouth. You will never have a friend if you must have one without faults.

Change | Human nature | Life | Life | Nature | Reality | Religion | Truth | Will |

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

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

Focus | Knowledge | Mind | Reason | Research | Unique | Work | Following |

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

A real taste for fairy-stories was wakened by philology on the threshold of manhood, and quickened to full life by war.

Belief | Uncertainty | Wrong |

Italian Proverbs

With the fox one must play the fox.

Absolute | Men | Sacred | Study | Will |

Italian Proverbs

You are more likely to win if you take the initiative and make an attack rather than preparing to defend yourself.

Faith | God | Light | People | Property | Religion | Will | God |

Itay Talgam

The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time.

Disdain | Global | Nations | Respect | Will | World | Respect |

J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

In ultimate analysis, the universe can be nothing less than the progressive manifestation of God.

Burial | Earth | Will | World |

Italian Proverbs

Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own.

Absolute | Atheism | Better | Cause | Critic | Discussion | Evil | Extreme | God | People | Problems | Religion | Science | Theology | Will | Work | World | God |