Great Throughts Treasury

"You might typically get something good out of an overall faulty book, especially a non-fictional one, such as sound advice or anecdotes to tell others." - Italian Proverbs

"You surround your vineyard with thorns - place doors and locks on your mouth. You will never have a friend if you must have one without faults." - Italian Proverbs

"Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions; transparency is politics' management of mistrust." - Ivan Krastev

"Democracy is the only game in town. The problem is [when] people start to believe that it is not a game worth playing." - Ivan Krastev

"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." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"During dinner at the Dersinghams in Angel Pavement... Do you ever watch rugger, Golspie? Mr Dersingham demanded down the table. What, rugby? Haven't see a match for years, replied Mr Golspie. Prefer the other kind when I do watch one. Major Trape raised his eyebrows, What, you a soccah man? Not this professional stuff? Don't tell me you like that. What's the matter with it? Oh, come now! I mean, you can't possibly --I mean it's a dirty business, selling fellahs for money and so on, very unsporting." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game: the heavy financial interests... the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press... but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt, and it has gone out and conquered the world." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"Our great-grandchildren, when they learn how we began this war by snatching glory out of defeat . . . may also learn how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glorious." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly

"I should say that, in addition to my tree-love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings, the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story..." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

"I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun; and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a Shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

"I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger; someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them..." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien