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 a friend asks, there is no tomorrow.

Time |

Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

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

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 |

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 |

Italian Proverbs

With the Gospel men may become heretics.

Belief | Failure | God | Failure | God | Guilty |

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

A pathetic and shadowy medley of half-remembered traditions and mutilated beliefs. ~On the Church of England

Absurd | Life | Life | Think |