Great Throughts Treasury

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

Related Quotes

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis of civilization. The time has come to regenerate society — we are on the eve of universal change.

Machines |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

My family helped start [this country], we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country.

Heart | Kill | Love | Past | Reading | Time |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Style is knowing who you are, what to say, and not giving a damn.

Good |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Socialism is very properly recognized by the capitalist class as the one cloud upon the horizon which portends an end to the system in which they have waxed fat, insolent and despotic through the exploitation of their countless wage-working slaves.

Right |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.

Change | Heart | Joy | Looks | People | Rest | Time |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

If the people would but analyze the human equation of a prison they might better account for the crimes that are visited upon them in cities, towns, and hamlets, oft times by men who graduated with an education and equipment for just that sort of retributive service from some penal institution.

Self-interest | Slavery | Work |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

Means | Pleasure | Protest | Old |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

If Henry Miller often sounded like a village idiot, it is because, like Whitman, he was the rest of the village as well.

People | Relationship |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

At a certain age, you have to live near good medical care — if, that is, you're going to continue. You always have the option of not continuing, which, I fear, is sometimes nobler.

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature.

Money | Pleasure |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Cooperative industry in which all shall work together in harmony as the basis of a new social order, a higher civilization, a real republic. That is the demand.

Enough | Think |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.

Heart | People |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing.

Men | Model | Time | Wonder | Understand |

Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty

Time |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.

Good | Human race | Nature | Race | Reason | Worth |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

News | Time | Work |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

So far as I am concerned, it does not matter what others may say, or think, or do, as long as I am sure that I am right with myself and the cause. There are so many who seek refuge in the popular side of a great question. As a Socialist, I have long since learned how to stand alone.