Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Archibald MacLeish

American Poet, Writer, Librarian of Congress

"We have no choice but to be guilty. God is unthinkable if we were innocent."

"A poem should not mean, but be."

"A man who lives not by what he loves but by what he hates is a sick man."

"The dissenter is every human being at those moments in his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."

"Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered. For the American citadel is a man. Not man in general. Not man in the abstract. Not the majority of men. But man. That man. His worth. His uniqueness."

"The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."