Great Throughts Treasury

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

Hu Shih, born Hu Hung-hsing

Chinese Author and Cultural Critic

"Whenever you do something without asking yourself, “Why am I doing this?” That is the meaningless life… The “why” of life makes it meaningful… Only when an answer is given is one living life as a man."

"The knowledge that mankind needs is not the way or principle which has an absolute existence, but the particular truths for here and now and for particular individuals. Absolute truth is imaginary, abstract, vague, without evidence, and cannot be demonstrated."

"The underlying sickness of human life is an unwillingness to look with open eyes at the condition of the world."

"Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility. "

"What is sacred among one people may be ridiculous in another; and what is despised or rejected by one cultural group, may in a different environment become the cornerstone for a great edifice of strange grandeur and beauty. "