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 Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Hang it all, Robert Browning, there can be but the one "Sordello."

Language | Literature | Meaning |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

Good | Language | Wants |

Felix Adler

Statesmen and Philanthropists are busy suggesting remedies for the cure of these great evils. But the renovation of our Civil Service, the reform of our Primaries, and whatever other measures may be devised, they all depend in the last instance upon the fidelity of those to whom their execution must be entrusted. They will all fail unless the root of the evil be attacked, unless the conscience of men be aroused, the confusion of right and wrong checked, and the loftier purposes of our being again brought powerfully home to the hearts of the people.

Change | Evolution | Human nature | Life | Life | Light | Mankind | Means | Men | Nature | Object | Perfection |

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

No one knows, at sight a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, there's nothing in it. Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me: Don't kick against the pricks, accept opinion. The Nineties tried your game and died, there's nothing in it.

Convention | Good | Poetry |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Day | Good | Music | Poetry |

Felix Adler

Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil.

Aid | Cause | Culture | Evolution | Experience | Faith | Force | Humanity | Life | Life | Mankind | Morality | Nature | Optimism | Past | Peace | Pessimism | Power | Will |

Gustave Flaubert

She cast her eyes about her, longing for the earth to open up. Why not end it all? What was holding her back? She was free to act. And she moved forward. "Do it! Do it!" she ordered herself, peering down at the pavement.

Language | Wise |

Haile Selassie

I assert that the problem submitted to the Assembly today is a much wider one. It is not merely a question of the settlement of Italian aggression.

Language |

Italian Proverbs

The bell does not go to mass, and yet calls every one to it.

Good | Language |

Italian Proverbs

The first blow is as good as two.

Courage | Mankind | Men | Peace | Strength | Tears | Will |

Italian Proverbs

The shadow of a lord is a cap for a fool.

Language | People | Words |

Italian Proverbs

Who would have many friends let him test but few.

Battle | God | Kill | Language | Wills | God |

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

I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

Art | Heart | Language | Religion | Art |