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

It was dead contrary to the common experience of such encounters, when time is found to have built its own defensive lines, camouflaged vulnerable points, and laid a field of mines across all but a few well-trodden paths, so that, more often than not, we can only signal to one another from either side of the tangle of wire.

Day | Present | Will | Value |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

Just the place to bury a crock of gold,' said Sebastian. 'I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.

Hate | Heaven | Love | Old |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn't know existed.

Curiosity | Heart | Love | Search |

Evelyn Scott, also wrote under pseudonyms Ernest Souza and Elsie Dunn

The moon... is a mad woman holding up her dress so that her white belly shines. Haughty, impregnable, ridiculous, silent and white as a debauched queen.

Day |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

The langor of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth - all save this come and go with us through life...These things are a part of life itself; but languor - the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse - that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.

Chance | Heaven | Knowing | Man | Soul | World |

Evelyn Underhill

If we do not at least try to manifest something of Creative Charity in our dealings with life, whether by action, thought, or prayer, and do it at our own cost -- if we roll up the talent of love in the nice white napkin of piety and put it safely out of the way, sorry that the world is so hungry and thirsty, so sick and so fettered, and leave it at that: then, even that little talent may be taken from us. We may discover at the crucial moment that we are spiritually bankrupt.

Control | Day | God | Nothing | Organization | People | Will | Witness | World | God |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.

Chance | Heaven | Knowing | Little | Man | Nothing | Race | Soul | Survival | Vision | World |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

Perhaps all our lovers are merely hints and symbols; vagabond languages scrawled on gate-posts and paving stones along the weary road that others have trampled before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond each other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.

Day | Glory | Laughter | Men | Quiet |

Evelyn Underhill

Those who complain that they make no progress in the life of prayer because they cannot meditate should examine, not their capacity for meditation, but their capacity for suffering and love. For there is a hard and costly element, a deep seriousness, a crucial choice, in all genuine religion.

Dependence | God | Language | Life | Life | Little | Religion | Universe | God |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.

Day | Heart | Music | Present |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

The sound of the English country families baying for broken glass.

Day | Death | Guests |

Ezra Taft Benson

The great task of life is to learn the will of the Lord and then do it.

Belief | Experiment | Family | Freedom | Future | Genius | God | Government | Heaven | History | Inspiration | Knowledge | Land | Man | Men | Mission | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Right | Sense | Government | God |

Faith Baldwin

Men's private self-worlds are rather like our geographical world's seasons, storm, and sun, deserts, oases, mountains and abysses, the endless-seeming plateaus, darkness and light, and always the sowing and the reaping.

Balance | Day | Grief | Law | Life | Life | Little | Love | Loss |

Ezra Taft Benson

The world today speaks a great deal about love, and it is sought by many. But the pure love of Christ differs greatly from what the world thinks of love. Charity never seeks selfish gratification. The pure love of Christ seeks only the eternal growth and joy of others.

Freedom | Heaven | Power | Time | War |

Ezra Taft Benson

If a man does not control his temper, it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts. He then becomes a victim of his own passions and emotions, which lead him to actions that are totally unfit for civilized behavior, let alone behavior for a priesthood holder.

Family | Freedom | God | Government | Guidance | Heaven | History | Individual | Inspiration | Land | Liberty | Man | Men | Mission | Morality | Need | Providence | Religion | Right | Sacred | World | Worship | Government | Guidance | God | Child |

Faith Baldwin

Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence.

Courage | Day | Enough | Hope | Learning | Light | Strength | Think |

Ezra Taft Benson

Thoughts lead to acts, acts lead to habits, habits lead to character - and our character will determine our eternal destiny.

Day | Love | Spirit | Spirituality | Work |

Ezra Taft Benson

I believe that God has endowed men with certain inalienable rights as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and that no legislature and no majority, however great, may morally limit or destroy these; that the sole function of government is to protect life, liberty, and property, and anything more than this is usurpation and oppression. I believe that the Constitution of the United States was prepared and adopted by men acting under inspiration from Almighty God; that it is a solemn compact between the peoples of the states of this nation that all officers of government are under duty to obey; that the eternal moral laws expressed therein must be adhered to or individual liberty will perish. . . I am hereby resolved that under no circumstances shall the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights be infringed. In particular I am opposed to any attempt on the part of the federal government to deny the people their right to bear arms, to worship, and to pray when and where they choose, or to own and control private property.

Day | Study | Time | Will |

Ezra Taft Benson

What are these fundamental principles which have allowed the United States to progress so rapidly and yet remain free? First, a written Constitution clearly defining the limits of government so that government will not become more powerful than the people.

Agony | Earth | Force | Freedom | Government | Harm | Improvement | Individual | People | Power | World | Zeal | Government |