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

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

They should have told me that at the end of that gay journey and flower-strewn path were the hideous lights of home and the voices of children.

Hope | Lord | Wants | War | Will |

Evelyn Underhill

On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.

Contrast | Life | Life | Little | Need | Oratory | Rights | Sense | Wants | Will |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can't really hate God either. When they want to Hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretends it's God and hate that.

Care | News | Wants |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

There are always people who will - who will do peculiar things and think that they are doing things in the name of their religion.

Wants | World |

Ezra Taft Benson

Our Creator endowed each one of us with certain rights at birth, among which are the rights to life, liberty, speech, and conscience, to name a few. These are not just human rights; they are divine rights. When these rights are not permitted expression by a nation, that nation becomes inhibited in its progress and development, and its leaders are responsible before God for suffocating sacred rights. This native endowment is what separates man from the animals. It causes men to want to be good and to seek higher aspirations. It creates in man a desire to better his life and his station in life.

Business | Freedom | Future | Guarantee | Individual | Judgment | People | Power | Public | Rights | System | Wants | Wishes | Business |

Ezra Taft Benson

God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humbleÂ… We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we areÂ… We can choose to humble ourselves by receiving counsel and chastisementÂ… by forgiving those who have offended usÂ… by rendering selfless serviceÂ… by going on missions and preaching the word that can humble othersÂ… by getting to the temple more frequently, [and] by confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God... We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God, adjusting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives.

Eternal | Heaven | Wants | Friends |

Ezra Taft Benson

Not cheap politicians but statesmen are needed today. Not opportunists but men and women of principle must be demanded by the people. In this time of great stress and danger we must place [in office] only those dedicated to the preservation of our Constitution, our American Republic, and responsible freedom under God. “Oh, God, give us men with a mandate higher than the ballot box.”

Hope | Lord | Miracles | Wants | Will | Woman |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

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

Good | Language | Wants |

Ezra Taft Benson

I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding in every segment of our society. It is more highly organized, more cleverly disguised, and more powerfully promoted than ever before. Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world.

Church | Doctrine | Future | Government | Inheritance | Men | Rights | System | Will | Government |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Nothing matter but the quality of the affection—in the end—that has carved the trace in the mind dove sta memoria.

Good | Man | Wants |

Gustave Flaubert

That was how they would have liked to be: what they were doing was to dream up ideals and then refashion their past lives to match them. Speech is a rolling-machine that always stretches the feelings it expresses.

Wants |

Gustave Flaubert

She recognized the passion and the pain whereof she had all but died. The voice of the heroine seemed but the echo of her own heart, and the lovely illusion before her, part and parcel of her life. But no one on earth had ever loved 'her' with such a love as that.

Wants |

Gustave Flaubert

We should not touch our idols: their gilding will remain on our hands.

Wants | Think |

Hannah Arendt

There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience's taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.

Wants |

Italian Proverbs

The sun is still beautiful, though ready to set.

Wants | Work |

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

And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.

Freedom | God | Order | Soul | Struggle | Wants | God |

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

All now took leave of the Lord of the City and went to rest while they still could. Outside there was a starless blackness as Gandalf, with Pippin beside him bearing a small torch, made his way to their lodging. They did not speak until they were behind closed doors. Then at last Pippin took Gandalf's hand. 'Tell me,' he said, 'is there any hope? For Frodo, I mean; or at least mostly for Frodo.' Gandalf put his hand on Pippin's head. 'There never was much hope,' he answered. 'Just a fool's hope, as I have been told. And when I heard of Cirith Ungol--' He broke off and strode to the window, as if his eyes could pierce the night in the East. 'Cirith Ungol!' he muttered. 'Why that way, I wonder?' He turned. 'Just now, Pippin, my heart almost failed me, hearing that name. And yet in truth I believe that the news that Faramir brings has some hope in it. For it seems clear that the Enemy has opened his war at last and made the first move when Frodo was still free. So now for many days he will have his eye turned this way and that, away from his own land. And yet, Pippin, I feel from afar his haste and fear. He has begun sooner than he would. Something has happened to stir him.

Change | People | System | Wants |

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

Aragorn looked at the pale stars, and at the moon, now sloping behind the western hills that enclosed the valley. 'This is a night as long as years', he said. 'How long will the day tarry?' 'Dawn is not far off', said Gamling, who had now climbed up beside him. 'But dawn will not help us, I fear' 'Yet dawn is ever the hope of men', said Aragorn.

Culture | Custom | Slavery | Wants | Work |

Italian Proverbs

With time and straw meddlers ripen.

Society | Wants | Society |