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

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain.

Anticipation | Heart | Hope | Humor | Will |

Emma Goldman

We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?

Hate | Joy | Life | Life | Logic | Machines | Pride | Risk | Thought | Will | Thought |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

Myths that need clarification: Everyone in California lives on a white, sandy beach. False. The only people who live on California beaches are vacationers from Arizona, Utah, and Nevada who own condos.

Humor | Talking |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."

Humor |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.

Comedy | Humor | Laughter | Pain |

Evelyn Underhill

Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds. Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.

Humor | Virtue | Virtue |

Italian Proverbs

The devil is bad because he is old.

Ability | Age | Art | Control | Culture | Humor | Memory | Need | Time | Work | World | Art |

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

Gandalf, dwarves and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit?may the hair on his toes never fall out!

Dynamic | Logic | Understanding | Will | Work |

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

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

Logic | Will |