Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Journey

"The key to all problems is the problem of consciousness." - Egyptian Proverbs

"One thing that has helped me personally in the past was to stop interfering with the people around me and getting frustrated when I couldn’t change them. Instead of intrusion and passivity, may I suggest submission? Some people make the mistake of confusing submission with weakness, whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe, including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend." - Elif Safak

"Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But both are equally true." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"A joy that's shared is a joy made double." - English Proverbs

"It is silly not to hope; besides I believe it is a sin. The Old Man and the Sea" - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated." - Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara

"It's all right, I want to say to the students who write to me, for things to be what they appear to be, and for words to mean what they say. It's all right, too, for words and appearances to mean more than one thing — ambiguity is a fact of life." - Eudora Welty

"Religion in our day has been captured by the tourist mindset. So many have a “bent” for religious entertainment." - Eugene Peterson

"Wait and watch are the two words given to us in our suffering. The words are connected with the image of watchmen waiting through the night for the dawn. There is something you can do, or more exactly, there is someone you can be: be a watchman." - Eugene Peterson

"Art is the production of objects for consumption, to be used and discarded while waiting for a new world in which man will have succeeded in freeing himself of everything, even of his own consciousness." - Eugenio Montale

"ManÂ’s best possession is a sympathetic wife." - Euripedes NULL

"I just assumed the world was full of solo percussionists. I couldn't find sticks or music or anything where I was, but that was expected because there was nothing there anyway. And I think that was possibly the greatest asset for me, just not knowing." - Evelyn Glennie, fully Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie

"Old boy, said Grimes, you're in love. Nonsense! Smitten? said Grimes. No, no. The tender passion? No. Cupid's jolly little darts? No. Spring fancies, love's young dream? Nonsense! Not even a quickening of the pulse? No. A sweet despair? Certainly not. A trembling hope? No. A frisson? a Je ne sais quoi? Nothing of the sort. Liar! said Grimes." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"Thus strategists hesitate over the map, the few pins and lines of coloured chalk, contemplating a change in the pins and lines, a matter of inches, which outside the room, out of sight of the studious officers, may engulf the past, present and future in ruin or life. She was a symbol to herself then, lacking the life of both child and woman; victory and defeat were changes of pin and line; she knew nothing of war." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears." - Gustave Flaubert

"She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality of marriage." - Gustave Flaubert

"Six feet of earth will make us all equal." - Italian Proverbs

"The chamber-bell is the worst sound one have in his ears." - Italian Proverbs

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

"But the only measure that he knows is desire; desire for power and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this we shall put him out of reckoning." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien