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

I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.

Waste |

Italian Proverbs

The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending.

Ability | Adventure | Character | Comfort | Convictions | Daring | Ideas | Injustice | Injustice | Love | Man | Men | Qualities | Sound | Suffering | Talking | Time | Universe | Will | Witness | Blessed | Old | Winning |

Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

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

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

And in that very moment, away behind in some far corner of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

Change | Freedom | Government | Life | Life | Government |

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

A sister they had, Galadriel, most beautiful of all the house of Finw‰; her hair was lit with gold as though it had caught in a mesh the radiance of Laurelin.

Absolute | Life | Life | Past | Waste |

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

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil...

Global | Important | Slavery |

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

But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.

Global | Slavery |

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

Dwarves are not heroes, but a calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.

Will |

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

Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things.

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

Few there were who could change his courses by counsel. None by force.

Law | Success |

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

Gandalf, dwarves and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit?may the hair on his toes never fall out!

Dynamic | Logic | Understanding | Will | Work |

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

Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

Age | Technology | Will |

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

GANDALF: A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

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

For it is now to us itself ancient; and yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote.

Service |

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

Gandalf!' cried Frodo, sitting up. There was the old wizard, sitting in a chair by an open window. 'Yes,' he said, 'I am here. And you are lucky to be here, too, after all the absurd things you have done since you left home. He was smiling, and there seemed to be little wrong with him. But to the wizard's eye there was a faint change, just a hint as it were of transparency, about him, and especially about the left hand that lay outside upon the coverlet.

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

Each day before the end of eve she sought her lover, nor would him leave, until the stars were dimmed, and day came glimmering eastward silver-grey. Then trembling-veiled she would appear, and dance before him, half in fear; there flitting just before his feet she gently chid with laughter sweet: 'Come! dance now, Beren, dance with me! For fain thy dancing I would see!

Absence | Business | Ideas | Innovation | Life | Life | Model | Universe | Will | World | Following | Business |

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

FRODO: I wish none of this had happened. GANDALF: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Age | Wants |

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

Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose. He took his staff in one hand and the phial in his other. When he saw that the clear light was already welling through his fingers, he thrust it into his bosom and held it against his heart. Then turning from the city of Morgul, now no more than a grey glimmer across a dark gulf, he prepared to take the upward road.

Will |

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

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

Industry | Sense |