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. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in color and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.

Father | Future | Light | Past | Think |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

Force | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Mind | Trust | Think |

J. L. Balsford

Human happiness depends mainly upon the improvement of small opportunities.

Universe | Will |

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

But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.

Good | Nature | Need | Slavery | Work |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I know only two words of American slang, 'swell' and 'lousy'. I think 'swell' is lousy, but 'lousy' is swell.

Imagination | Knowledge | Light | Technology | Thinking |

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

A pathetic and shadowy medley of half-remembered traditions and mutilated beliefs. ~On the Church of England

Absurd | Life | Life | Think |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Our dourest parsons, who followed the nonconformist fashion of long extemporary prayers, always seemed to me to be bent on bullying God.

Change | Duty | Ideas | Nature | Opinion | Think |

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

But it does not seem that I can trust anyone, said Frodo. Sam looked at him unhappily. It all depends on what you want, put in Merry. You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.

Destroy | Land | Life | Life | Nature | Order | People | Slavery |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith.

Joy | Light | Mind | Sense | Thinking | Thought | Time | Thought |

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

I have not been nourished by English Literature... for the simple reason that I have never found much there in which to rest my heart (or heart and head together). I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer... I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright color, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact ?mad?. . . but I don?t believe I am... I set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own.

Light |

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

Each day before the end of eve she sought her lover, nor would him leave, until the stars were dimmed, and day came glimmering eastward silver-grey. Then trembling-veiled she would appear, and dance before him, half in fear; there flitting just before his feet she gently chid with laughter sweet: 'Come! dance now, Beren, dance with me! For fain thy dancing I would see!

Absence | Business | Ideas | Innovation | Life | Life | Model | Universe | Will | World | Following | Business |

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

Good-bye, master, my dear!' he murmured. 'Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done - if he manages it. And then he'll not leave you again. Rest you quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again. Good-bye!

Life | Life | Nature |

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

Goodbye, master, my dear! Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done - if he manages it. And then he'll not leave you again. Rest you quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again. Good bye!

Enough | Innovation | Nature | Usefulness | Will | Inertia |

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

For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world's end.