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

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.

People | Work |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one'... (The man who first said that) was probably a coward... He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them.

Man |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch.

Better | Courage | Good | Kill | Light | Loneliness | Love | Man | People | Time | Will | Wishes | World | Afraid |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be

Ability | Good | Knowledge | Life | Life | Money | Nothing | Price | Reward | Thought | Work | World | Thought |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.

Books | Boys | Government | Hope | Man | Politics | Will | Government |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

This book is fiction, but there is always a chance that such a work of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.

Alchemy | Beginning | Doubt | Enough | Good | Loneliness | Man | Public | Will | Work |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I thought I paid for everything. Not like women, pay and pay and pay. There is not a reward or punishment. Just exchange of values. Something comparable to, and in return you get something else. Or work for the sake of something. Anyway after all, at least partially good pay. Much of what I was paying, like me, and I had a good time. You pay either the knowledge or experience, or risk, or money. Enjoy life is nothing like the ability to get something equivalent expended money and realize it. And to get the full price for your money you can. Our world - a solid company. Excellent as a theory. In five years, I thought, it seems to me the same stupid, like all my other superior theory.

Good | Joy | Life | Life | Money | Order | Reward | Thought | Work | World | Worth | Learn | Thought |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.

Choice | Man | People | Strength | Old |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Then he began to pity the great fish that he had hooked. He is wonderful and strange and who knows how old he is, he thought. Never have I had such a strong fish nor one who acted so strangely. Perhaps he is too wise to jump. He could ruin me by jumping or by a wild rush. But perhaps he has been hooked many times before and he knows that this is how he should make his fight. He cannot know it is only one man against him, nor that it is an old man. But what a great fish he is and what will he bring in the market if the flesh is good. He took the bait like a male and he pulls like a male and his fight has no panic in it. I wonder if he has plans or if he is just as desperate as I am?

Work | Writing |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.

Man | People | Story | Old | Think |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

There was nothing to do about him. It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray overcast day with a low ceiling so their planes were not up. That and the fact that cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have.

Earth | Little | Man | Men |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

We need more true mystery in our lives Hem- he said. The completely unambitious writer and the really good unpublished poem are the things we lack most. There is of course the problem of sustenance.

Day | Man | Position | Power | Time | War | Will | Crisis |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

When I had finished the book I knew that no matter what Scott did, nor how he behaved, I must know it was like a sickness and be of any help I could to him and try to be a good friend. He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew. But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. But we were to find them out soon enough.

Day | Light | Love | Means | Nothing | Story | Time | Will | Work |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it.

Man | Will | Think |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again. Hell, I said, I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me? Yes. I want to ruin you. Good, I said. That's what I want too.

Man |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

This is a good place, he said. There's a lot of liquor, I agreed.

Chance | Light | Work |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Thou wilt go now, rabbit. But I go with thee. As long as there is one of us there is both of us.

Kill | Man | Noise |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

I have talked about the religion of economics, the idol worship of material possessions, of consumption and the so-called standard of living, and the fateful propensity that rejoices in the fact that "what were luxuries to our fathers have become necessities for us."

Doubt | Man | Size |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

Economists themselves, like most specialists, normally suffer from a kind of metaphysical blindness, assuming that theirs is a science of absolute and invariable truths, without any presuppositions.

Dependence | Economics | Existence | Man | Means | Value |