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

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.

Attention | Criticism | Men |

Ezra Taft Benson

We had better take our small pain now than our greater loss later. There were souls who wished afterwards that they had stood and fought with Washington and the founding fathers, but they waited too long—they passed up eternal glory. There has never been a greater time than now to stand up against entrenched evil. And while the gentiles established the Constitution, we have a divine mandate to preserve it. But unfortunately today in this freedom struggle, many gentiles are showing greater wisdom in their generation than the children of light.

Attention | Blessings | Evil | Faith | Focus | Freedom | Individual | Life | Life | Principles | Reading | Will | Learn |

Ezra Taft Benson

One of the marks of an educated man today is to know what not to read--what not to see or what not to listen to.

Attention | Cause | Family | Man | Problems | Self | Woman |

Felix Adler

In order to join vigorously in the moral work of the world I must believe that somehow the best I can accomplish will endure, will leave its trace on things, will aid the final consummation.

Attention | Civilization | Industry | People | Wealth |

Felix Adler

The ethical element of religion has ever been its truly vital and quickening force. It is this which lends such majesty to the speeches of the Prophets, which gives such ineffable power and sweetness to the words of Jesus. Has this ethical element become less important in our age? Has the need of accentuating it become less imperative?

Darkness | Joy | Light | Man | Universe | World |

Felix Adler

If you desire information on some point of law, you are not likely to ponder over the ponderous tomes of legal writers in order to obtain the knowledge you seek, by your own unaided efforts.

Excellence | Law | Man | Order | Qualities | Righteousness | Universe | Will | Excellence |

Felix Adler

There may be, and there ought to be, progress in the moral sphere. The moral truths which we have inherited from the past need to be expanded and restated. In times of misfortune we require for our support something of which the truth is beyond all question, in which we can put an implicit trust, "though the heavens should fall." A merely borrowed belief is, at such time, like a rotten plank across a raging torrent. The moment we step upon it, it gives way beneath our feet.

Life | Life | Man | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Universe |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.

Taste |

Italian Proverbs

One who speaks fair words feeds you with an empty spoon.

Attention | Change | Conversation | Global | Land | Need |

Italian Proverbs

Out of a great evil often comes a great good.

Order | Universe |

Italian Proverbs

Necessity and opportunity may make a coward valiant.

Universe |

Italian Proverbs

The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending.

Ability | Adventure | Character | Comfort | Convictions | Daring | Ideas | Injustice | Injustice | Love | Man | Men | Qualities | Sound | Suffering | Talking | Time | Universe | Will | Witness | Blessed | Old | Winning |

Italian Proverbs

The tree is not felled at one blow.

Attention | Will |

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

Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.

Universe | War |

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

All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady.

Preference | Taste | Will | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Wise men change their minds, fools never.

Ability | Attention | Day | Good | Greed | Habit | People | Selfishness |

J. L. Balsford

Human happiness depends mainly upon the improvement of small opportunities.

Universe | Will |

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

I don?t know,? said Frodo. ?It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. It?s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door, he used to say. You step into the Road, and if you don?t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places? He used to say that on the path outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.

Taste |