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

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

I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse 'em of not having any faces.

Spirituality | Wrong |

J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

I am quite sure that our views on evolution would be very different had biologists studied genetics and natural selection before and not after most of them were convinced that evolution had occurred.

Time | Worry | Wrong | Think |

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

Against delay. Against the way that seems easier. Against refusal of the burden that is laid on me. Against - well, if it must be said, against trust in the strength and truth of Men.

Important | Will | Wrong | Learn |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

Better | Diligence | Nothing | Purity | Right | Sloth | Thinking | Words | Wrong | Friends |

J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

Every Christian church has tried to impose a code of morals of some kind for which it has claimed divine sanction. As these codes have always been opposed to those of the gospels a loophole has been left for moral progress such as hardly exists in other religions.

Wrong | Think |

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

After some while Bilbo became impatient. Well, what is it? he said. The answer's not a kettle boiling over, as you seem to think by the noise you are making.

Gold | Journey | Right | Spirit | Thought | Wants | World | Wrong | Thought |

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

For the trouble with the real folk of Faerie is that they do not always look like what they are; and they put on the pride and beauty that we would fain wear ourselves.

Authority | Wrong |

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

Haldir had gone on and was now climbing to the high flet. As Frodo prepared to follow him, he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.

People | Wrong |