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

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

If I had my way no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States, and all female athletes would be shipped to the white-slave corrals of the Argentine.

Life | Life | People | Style |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

In the superman Nietzsche gave the world the conceivable and possible goal for all human effort. Remained there but still a problem and it was this: When the Superman Appears at last on earth, what then? Will there be another super superman to follow and another super-superman after that? In the end, man will become the equal of the creator of the universe, whoever or whatever He may be? Or will a period of decline after eating, with long return down the line, down through the superman to man again, and then on to the anthropoid ape, to the lower mammals, to the asexual cell, and, finally, to mere inert matter, gas, ether, and empty space?

Question | Talking |

Gustavo GutiƩrrez

I am firmly convinced that poverty?this sub-human condition in which the majority of humanity lives today?is more than a social issue. Poverty poses a major challenge to every Christian conscience and therefore to theology as well. People today often talk about contextual theologies but, in point of fact, theology has always been contextual. Some theologies, it is true, may be more conscious of and explicit about their contextuality, but all theological investigation is necessarily carried out within a specific historical context. When Augustine wrote The City of God, he was reflecting on what it meant for him and for his contemporaries to live the Gospel within a specific context of serious historical transformations. Our context today is characterized by a glaring disparity between the rich and the poor. No serious Christian can quietly ignore this situation. It is no longer possible for someone to say, ?Well, I didn?t know? about the suffering of the poor. Poverty has a visibility today that it did not have in the past. The faces of the poor must now be confronted. And we also understand the causes of poverty and the conditions that perpetuate it. There was a time when poverty was considered to be an unavoidable fate, but such a view is no longer possible or responsible. Now we know that poverty is not simply a misfortune; it is an injustice.

Little | Question |

Italian Proverbs

Starting properly ensures the speedy completion of a process. A beginning is often blocked by one or more obstacles (potential barriers) the removal of which may ensure the smooth course of the process.

Office | People | Question | Will |

Italian Proverbs

No day but has its evening.

Competition | Focus | Important | Love | Question | Will |

Italian Proverbs

When a wife sins the husband is never innocent.

Education | Ideas | Justify | Knowledge | Learning | Literature | Need | People | Question | Study | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Value |

Italian Proverbs

There is no beard so well shaven but another barber will find something more to shave from it.

Better | Opinion | Question | World |

Italian Proverbs

To every saint his torch.

Effort | Good | Hope | Important | Question |

Italian Proverbs

When all men say you are an ass it is time to bray.

Failure | Future | Life | Life | Mistake | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Right | Failure |

Italian Proverbs

The virtue of silence is a great piece of knowledge.

Public | Question |

Italian Proverbs

To go safely through the world you must have the eye of a falcon, the ear of an ass, the face of an ape, the mouth of a pig, the shoulders of a camel, and the legs of a deer.

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

And still Meriadoc the hobbit stood there blinking through his tears, and no one spoke to him, indeed none seemed to heed him. He brushed away the tears, and stooped to pick up the green shield that Eowyn had given him, and he slung it at his back. Then he looked for his sword that he had let fall; for even as he struck his blow his arm was numbed, and now he could only use his left hand.

Choice | Government | Industry | Labor | Question | Work | Government | Leadership |

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

And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.

Business | Children | Debt | Extreme | Important | Question | Slavery | Business | Understand |

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

At the hill?s foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he knew that he beheld things as they had been in this same place. For the grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in white, a young lord fall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue to one whom Frodo could not see. Arwen vanimelda, namarie! He said, and then he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and smiled. `Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,? he said, `and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!? And taking Frodo?s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as a living man.

Enough | Question | Right |

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

All stories are ultimately about the fall.

Question |

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

All this last day Frodo had not spoken, but had walked half-bowed, often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master's left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn.

Will |

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

If human beings could be propagated by cutting, like apple trees, aristocracy would be biologically sound.

Nothing | Phenomena | Question | Sound |

Italian Proverbs

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Age | Important | Mistake | Myth | Question | Regard | Science |