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

When a man has fallen into the mire, the more he flounders the more he fouls himself.

Dishonesty | Life | Life | Little | People | Reason | Self | Sense | Truth | Words | Think |

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

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

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 |

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 sometimes wish they would swagger more now, buy bigger overcoats and wilder hats, and retain those traces of make-up that put them outside respectability and keep them rogues and vagabonds, which is what, at heart - bless 'em - they are.

Sense |

Ivan Krastev

[It's] difficult to engage people in politics when they believe that what really matters is where they personally stand.

Ideas | Practice | Sacred | Sense | Sound |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.

Experience | God | Human nature | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | God |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

If there is one thing left that I would like to do, it's to write something really beautiful. And I could do it, you know. I could still do it.

Beginning | Evidence | Life | Life | Meaning | Sense | Worry |

Italian Proverbs

You are more likely to win if you take the initiative and make an attack rather than preparing to defend yourself.

Faith | God | Light | People | Property | Religion | Will | God |

J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

As we read the school reports on our children, we realize a sense of relief, that can rise to delight, that, thank Heaven, nobody is reporting in this fashion on us.

Ambiguity | Better | Compassion | Enemy | Failure | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Little | Means | People | Religion | Sense | Tradition | Understanding | Work | Failure |

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. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in color and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.

Father | Future | Light | Past | Think |

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

But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. The choice is yours: to go or wait.' 'And it is also said,' answered Frodo: 'Go not to the Elves for counsel for they will answer both no and yes.' 'Is it indeed?' laughed Gildor. 'Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

Better | Day | Debt | Experiment | Family | Life | Life | Need | Rest | Sense | Will | Following |

Italian Proverbs

With the first wife is matrimony, the second company, the third heresy.

Criticism | Sense |

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 |