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

Felix Adler

A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.

History | Nothing | Thought | Tradition | World | Loss | Think | Thought | Understand |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

Business | Family | Meaning | Will | Business |

Felix Adler

Good deeds remain good, no matter whether we know how the world was made or not. Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness. The question for anyone to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay, the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral completeness is, in the true sense, a human being.

Fortune | Good | Happiness |

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The paradox of the British: the weak who wangled the earth and were cursed for it and by it.

Gustave Flaubert

It?s hard to communicate anything exactly and that?s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.

Ambition | Ambition | Happiness |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even halfwits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must be to penalize the free play of ideas.

Italian Proverbs

Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Peace | Happiness |

Italian Proverbs

There is never enough where nought is left.

Better | Change | Motives | Work | Understand |

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

Dead men are not friends to living men, and give them no gifts.

Better | Cause | Peril | Time | Will |

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

And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me, for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan.

Rights | Slavery | Work | World |

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

At last Frodo spoke with hesitation. 'I believed that you were a friend before the letter came,' he said, 'or at least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way the servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand

Success |

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

Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?

Debt | Old |

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

I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't 0even be here. But we are.It's like in the great stories, Mister Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they we're. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Happiness |

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 |