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

Étienne Pivert de Senancour

The happiness is the happiness that seems complete, and that s' announcement as permanent for and say.

Good | Harmony | Love | Object |

Eugene Peterson

ItÂ’s a wonderful formula for getting to heaven the quickest and easiest way. And virtually foolproof. There is no time to backslide, no temptations to bother with, no doubts to wrestle with, no spouse to have to honor, no kids to put up with, no enemies to love, no more sorrow, no more tears. Instant eternity.

Conversation | God | Life | Life | People | Work | God |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

But land is land, and it's safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers.

Life | Life | Self |

Eudora Welty

Then the light changed the water, until all about them the woods in the rising wind seemed to grow taller and blow inward together and suddenly turn dark. The rain struck heavily. A huge tail seemed to lash through the air and the river broke in a wound of silver.

Life | Life | Work | Writing |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself . . . so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe.

Absurd | Enough | Faith | Life | Life | Truth | Trial |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!.. And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason.

Love |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

LAVINIA: I love everything that grows simply-- up toward the sun-- everything that's straight and strong! I hate what's warped and twists and eats into itself and dies for a lifetime in shadow...

Life | Life | Love | Right | Time |

Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

There is only one thing to do — take it to the country!

Incompetence | Life | Life | People | Success | System | War |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

In fact, the French - who read and theorise the most - became so addicted to political experiment that in the two centuries since our own rather drab revolution they have exuberantly produced one Directory, one Consulate, two empires, three restorations of the monarchy, and five republics. That's what happens when you take writing too seriously.

Birth | Contradiction | Life | Life |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.

Care | Life | Life | People | Public | World |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.

Death | Equanimity | Eternal | Evil | Fear | Grace | Life | Life | Men | Reward | Will |

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 |

Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Since nothing is free, to each his price.

Life | Life | Wrong |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.

Business | Will | Writing | Business |

Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

There are certain truths so true that they are practically unbelievable.

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.

Life | Life |

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 |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Sexual revelation in literature, must be tactful and must serve plot

Life | Life | Meaning | Nothing | Novels |