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

Italian Proverbs

The water breaks out where it is not expected.

Truth |

Italian Proverbs

The sick man sleeps when the debtor cannot.

Global | Sense | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Those who sleep don't catch any fish.

Sense |

Italian Proverbs

Too many chiefs, not enough warriors.

Absence | Atheism | History | Means | Prayer | Public | Research | Rule |

Italian Proverbs

Who by himself can do anything, do not wait for others to do.

Commitment | Good | Means | Mystery | Object | Religion |

Italian Proverbs

When your devil was born, mine was going to school.

Character | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

When wine sinks, words swim.

Atheism | Better | Commitment | God | Life | Life | Reason | Right | Story | Suffering | Truth | Unique | God |

Italian Proverbs

Where there is no adversity of some sort there is seldom anything to win; No or little adversity is a sign that fortune has forgotten you.

Sense |

Italian Proverbs

The well-fed man does not believe in hunger.

Means | Public | System |

Italian Proverbs

To protest and knock one's head against the wall is what everybody can do.

Good | Ignorance | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

When the cat's away, the mice will play.

Self | Sense | World |

Italian Proverbs

Where there is nothing to gain, there is a lot to lose.

Example | Knowledge | Light | Think |

Italian Proverbs

Words are female, deeds are male.

Creed | Disbelief | God | Truth | Will | God |

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

And suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world

Means |

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

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.

Abuse | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Means | Men | Problems | Suicide | Trust | Work | World | Learn |

Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

Belief | Compassion | Desire | God | Human race | Love | Means | Race | Will | God |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

In plain words; now that Britain has told the world she has the H-Bomb, she should announce as early as possible that she has done with it, that she proposes to reject, in all circumstances, nuclear warfare. This is not pacifism. There is no suggestion here of abandoning the immediate defence of this island...No, what should be abandoned is the idea of deterrence-by-threat-of-retaliation. There is no real security in it, no decency in it, no faith, hope, nor charity in it.

Earth | Experience | Need | Revolution | Sacred | Will | Value |

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

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Curiosity | Error | Experience | Important | Life | Life | Nothing | Past | Pleasure | Price | Pride | Sense | Story | Teach | Time | Waiting | Will | Wrong |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

I'm in the business of providing people with secondary satisfactions. It wouldn't have done me much good if they had all written their own plays, would it?

Ability | Change | Experience | Important | Myth | Qualities | Reading | Space | Time |