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 McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

Let us pick up again these lost strands and weave them again into the fabric of America, sort out the music from the sounds and again respond to the trumpet and the steady drum.

People |

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

The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.

Genius | Majority | Nothing | People | System |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt—until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

People |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

A man should take to himself no discomfort from an opinion expressed or implied by his adversary, but it is difficult, and oftentimes humiliating to attempt to justify the kindness of one's friends.

Age | Disguise | People |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace.

Better | Education | Men | People | Prison | Service |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The people can have anything they want, the only problem is they do not want anything.

Freedom | People |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.

Despair | Individual | Land | Man | People | Sense | Will | Woman |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.

History | People | Thought | Will | Think | Thought |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle. The nation had for its cornerstone a strike, and while arrogant injustice throws down the gauntlet and challenges the right to conflict, strikes will come, come by virtue of irrevocable laws, destined to have a wider sweep and greater power as men advance in intelligence and independence

Rights | Sacred |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

I shared, naturally, in that hatred of organized labor which has been the one political constant in my lifetime, culminating in Ronald Reagan's most popular gesture, the smashing of the air-controllers' union. No alternative view of organized labor has ever come to us through the popular media. If labor leaders were not crooks like Jimmy Hoffa, they were in the pay of Moscow.

Good | Human race | People | Race | Regard | Religion | System | World |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

God | Good | People | Practice | Prison | God |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

If you go to the city of Washington, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of congress, and mis-representatives of the masses claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.

Right | War |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The political solidarity of the working class means the death of despotism, the birth of freedom, the sunrise of civilization.

People |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.

Language | People | Time | Will | Words |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.

People |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.

Lesson | Right | Thought | Thought |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.

Labor | Land | Present | Right | Will |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The united vote of those who toil and have not will vanquish those who have and toil not, and solve forever the problems of democracy.

Courage | Injustice | Injustice | Intelligence | Justice | Men | Power | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wrong |