Great Throughts Treasury

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

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

German Philosopher, Literary Figure, Socialite and the younger brother of poet Johann Georg Jacobi, noted for coining the term Nihilism

"Every great example takes hold of us with the authority of a miracle, and says to us, "If ye had but faith, ye, also, could do the same things.""

"If is never too late with us, so long as we are aware of our faults and bear them impatiently."

"To lay aside all prejudice is to lay aside all principles. He who is destitute of principles is governed, theoretically and practically, by whims."

"It is not truth, justice, liberty, which men seek; they seek only themselves. And O that they knew how to seek themselves aright!"

"Men will always act according to their passions. Therefore the best government is that which inspires the nobler passions and destroys the meaner."

"In one thing men of all ages are alike; they have believed obstinately in themselves."

"We enjoy ourselves only in our work, our doing; and our best doing is our best enjoyment."

"Every man has some kind of religion: that is, a supreme Truth by which he measures all his judgments – a supreme Will by which he measures all his endeavors."

"What is there in man so worthy of honor and reverence as this, that he is capable of contemplating something higher than his own reason, more sublime than the whole universe -- that Spirit which alone is self-subsistent, from which all truth proceeds, without which there is no truth?"