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. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

Action | Enough | Force | Law | Little | Time |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.

Father | Knowledge | Love | Time |

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

And in that very moment, away behind in some far corner of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

Change | Freedom | Government | Life | Life | Government |

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

And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! Then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-colored floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities, such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come, And plink! A silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weeds and corals in a grotto of the sea. Then evening comes: they fade and twinkle out; the torches pass on into another chamber and another dream. There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; and still the winding paths lead on into the mountains? heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm?s Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them.

Freedom | Training |

Itay Talgam

The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time.

Disdain | Global | Nations | Respect | Will | World | Respect |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from... the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviar, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.

Absolute | Compassion | Equity | Heart | Honor | Suffering | Work | World |

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 |

Italian Proverbs

Wise men change their minds, fools never.

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

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

Capitalism, though it may not always give the scientific worker a living wage, will always protect him, as being one of the geese which produce golden eggs for its table.

Beginning | Loneliness | Lying | People | Time | Work |

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

Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes Luke a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowdilly, small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime.

Action | Global | Present | Property | Sense | System | Thought | Will | Thought |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Our dourest parsons, who followed the nonconformist fashion of long extemporary prayers, always seemed to me to be bent on bullying God.

Change | Duty | Ideas | Nature | Opinion | Think |

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

Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of And£ril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. 'Elendil!' he cried. 'I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, D£nadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!

Control | Enough | Improvement | Labor | Money | People | Reason | Responsibility | Slavery | Child | Think |

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

Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual--a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher--and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord.

Self |

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

I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.

Blame |