Great Throughts Treasury

"Saints are simply men and women who have fulfilled their natural obligation which is to approach God." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"Your colleague, Captain Grimes, has been convicted before me on evidence that leaves no possibility of his innocence - of a crime (I might almost call it a course of action) which I can neither understand nor excuse. I dare say I need not particularize." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"No verse is libre for the man who wants to do a good job." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs I am compelled to conclude that man is the superior animal. When I consider the curious habits of man I confess, my friend, I am puzzled." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"For more than three thousand years men have quarreled concerning the formulas of their faith." - Felix Adler

"The fact that there is a spiritual power in us, that is to say, a power which testifies to the unity of our life with the life of others, which impels us to regard others as other selves — this fact conies home to us even more forcibly in sorrow than in joy. It is thrown into clearest relief on the background of pain. In the glow of achievement we are apt to be full of a false self-importance. But in moments of weakness we realize, through contrast, the infinitely superior strength of the power whose very humble organs and ministers we are. It is then we come to understand that, isolated from it, we are nothing; at one with it, identified with it, we participate in its eternal nature, in its resistless course." - Felix Adler

"We must laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, in a word, vibrate to our full capacity... That's what being really human means." - Gustave Flaubert

"A demagogue's mind is a beautiful mechanism. It can think anything he asks it to think." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

"Once resolved, the trouble is over." - Italian Proverbs

"The lion had need of the mouse." - Italian Proverbs

"But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. The choice is yours: to go or wait.' 'And it is also said,' answered Frodo: 'Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes.' 'Is it indeed?' laughed Gildor. 'Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

"But it is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

"Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the Little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

"Frodo stood up. He had laughed in the midst of all his cares when Sam trotted out the old fireside rhyme of Oliphant, and the laugh had released him from hesitation. 'I wish we had a thousand oliphants with Gandalf on a white one at their head,' he said. 'Then we'd break a way into this evil land, perhaps. But we've not; just our own tired legs, that's all. Well, Smeagol, the third turn may turn the best. I will come with you." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien