Great Throughts Treasury

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

Israel Zangwill

English Novelist, Playwright, Zionist Leader

"It is precisely in the Old Testament that is reached the highest ethical note ever yet sounded... by man."

"Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion."

"A people that has learned to live without a country is unconquerable."

"Aspiration is achievement."

"Every dogma has its day, but ideals are eternal."

"Intellect obscures more than it illumines."

"The best form of prayer is work."

"To speak of Jews as rejecting Christ when it was a Jew who spread his gospel is a strange popular blunder."

"The past is our cradle, not our prison, and there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition."

"Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion."

"Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion. "

"Everything changes but change. "