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

At least for a while the road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

Change | Children | Controversy | Labor | Public | Work | Worry | Child | Learn |

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

And they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

Children | Good | Money | Parents | Promise | Will | Work |

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

The wisdom of one generation will be the folly of the next.

Future | Past |

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

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.

Birth | Hope | World |

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

Are you in pain, Frodo?' said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo's side. 'Well, yes I am,' said Frodo. 'It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.' 'Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,' said Gandalf. 'I fear it may be so with mine,' said Frodo. 'There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?' Gandalf did not answer.

Children | Property |

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

Although now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned: Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons- 'twas our right (used or misused). That right has not decayed: we make still by the law in which we're made. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

Age | Children | Cost | Slavery | Work |

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

But no living man am I You look upon a woman. Owyn I am, Omunds daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.

Children | Control | Good | Government | Parents | Slavery | Government |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

Children | Will | Truths |

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

And as the captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.

Children | Debt | Parents | Work | Child |

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

An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.

Children | Lending | Friends |

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

How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'

Past |