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

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night.

Man | Wise |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No man is ever too old to look at a woman, and no woman is ever too fat to hope that he will look.

Man | Wise |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent - slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church, as an organization, has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.

Wise |

Hannah Arendt

The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.

Wise |

Hans Küng

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

Man | Wise |

Hans Hoffman

Just as counterpoint and harmony follow their own laws, and differ in rhythm and movement, both formal tensions and color tensions have a development of their own in accordance with the inherent laws from which they are separately derived. Both, however, aim toward the realization of the same image. And both deal with the depth problem.

Wise |

Hannah Arendt

The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons

Thought | Wise | Thought |

Hannah Arendt

There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.

Wise |

Italian Proverbs

Softly, barber, the water scalds.

Balance | Rights | System | Wise |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

I will take the Ring, he said, though I do not know the way.

Dreams | Wise |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

In those days of our tale, there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors and Elrond, the master of the house, was their chief. He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves and as kind as summer.

Man | Wise |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the Ages of this world alone.

Man | Wise |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

If thou hadst thy will what wouldst thou reserve? said Manwe. Of all thy realm what dost thou hold dearest? All have their worth, said Yavanna, and each contributes to the worth of the others. But the kelvar can flee or defend themselves, whereas the olvar that grow cannot. And among these I hold trees dear. Long in the growing, swift shall they be in the felling, and unless they pay toll with fruit upon their bough little mourned in their passing. So I see in my thought, would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them!

Man | Need | Wise | Friends |