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

Italian Proverbs

Too many chiefs, not enough warriors.

Absence | Atheism | History | Means | Prayer | Public | Research | Rule |

Italian Proverbs

Who by himself can do anything, do not wait for others to do.

Commitment | Good | Means | Mystery | Object | Religion |

Italian Proverbs

The sun loses nothing by shining into a puddle.

Future | Present | Time |

Italian Proverbs

Things that has happened will happen again. Religious myths for example, which are allegorical, will per definition reoccur.

Time |

Italian Proverbs

The well-fed man does not believe in hunger.

Means | Public | System |

Italian Proverbs

When a friend asks, there is no tomorrow.

Time |

Italian Proverbs

Virtue comes not from chance but long study.

Memory | Time |

Italian Proverbs

Water after does not quench a fire at hand.

Time | Unity | Think |

Italian Proverbs

There is no rule without an exception.

People | Work | Think |

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

The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilizations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.

Age | Boys | Magic | Time | Vision |

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

And Gandalf said: 'This is your realm, and the heart of the greater realm that shall be. The Third Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order it's beginning and to preserve what must be preserved. For though much has been saved, much must now pass away; and the power of the Three Rings also is ended. And all the lands that you see, and those that lie round about them, shall be dwellings of Men. For the time comes of the Dominion of Men, and the Elder Kindred shall fade or depart.

Freedom | Guarantee | Individual | Labor | Reality | Slavery | Work |

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

And suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world

Means |

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

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.

Abuse | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Means | Men | Problems | Suicide | Trust | Work | World | Learn |

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

Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts.

Better | Cause | Peril | Time | Will |

Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

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

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

We must, I think, regard the normal death as a feature characteristic of life. Normal death is sometimes regarded as a wearing out of the machinery of life; but it is evidently a quite unsuitable metaphor, since living structure, when we consider it closely, can easily be seen to be constantly renewing itself, so that it cannot be regarded as mere machinery which necessarily wears out. Normal death must apparently be regarded from the biological standpoint as a means by which room is made for further more definite development of life.

People | Work |

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

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Curiosity | Error | Experience | Important | Life | Life | Nothing | Past | Pleasure | Price | Pride | Sense | Story | Teach | Time | Waiting | Will | Wrong |

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

And he sang to them, now in the Elven tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

Work |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I'm in the business of providing people with secondary satisfactions. It wouldn't have done me much good if they had all written their own plays, would it?

Ability | Change | Experience | Important | Myth | Qualities | Reading | Space | Time |