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

When the sun is highest it casts the least shadow.

Good | Gratitude | Important | Nothing | People | Practice | Religion |

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

The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilizations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.

Age | Boys | Magic | Time | Vision |

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. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I sometimes wish they would swagger more now, buy bigger overcoats and wilder hats, and retain those traces of make-up that put them outside respectability and keep them rogues and vagabonds, which is what, at heart - bless 'em - they are.

Sense |

Ivan Krastev

[It's] difficult to engage people in politics when they believe that what really matters is where they personally stand.

Ideas | Practice | Sacred | Sense | Sound |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.

Experience | God | Human nature | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | God |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

If there is one thing left that I would like to do, it's to write something really beautiful. And I could do it, you know. I could still do it.

Beginning | Evidence | Life | Life | Meaning | Sense | Worry |

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

But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. The choice is yours: to go or wait.' 'And it is also said,' answered Frodo: 'Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes.' 'Is it indeed?' laughed Gildor. 'Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

Better | Day | Debt | Experiment | Family | Life | Life | Need | Rest | Sense | Will | Following |

Italian Proverbs

With the first wife is matrimony, the second company, the third heresy.

Criticism | Sense |

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

Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes Luke a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowdilly, small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime.

Action | Global | Present | Property | Sense | System | Thought | Will | Thought |

Ivan Krastev

Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions; transparency is politics' management of mistrust.

Cult | Language | Myth | Paradise | People | Reality | Religion | Sense | Story | World |

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

A time may come soon, said he, when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defense of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised. She answered: All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honor, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death. What do you fear, lady? he asked. A cage, she said. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.

Consequences | Evidence | Injustice | Injustice | Learning | Murder | Relationship | Sense | System | Murder | Learn | Think |

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

Arise, arise, Riders of Th‚oden! Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Business | People | Sense | Slavery | Business | Old |

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

But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow in the waters that was soon lost in the West. There he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.

Technology | Vision | Will |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith.

Joy | Light | Mind | Sense | Thinking | Thought | Time | Thought |

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

How do you move on? You move on when your heart finally understands that there is no turning back.

Gratitude | Life | Life |

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

I should think so-in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Makes you late for dinner! I can't see what anybody sees in it.

Capacity | Vision |

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

Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!

Industry | Sense |