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

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

You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

Public | System | Propaganda |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Intellectual darkness is essential to industrial slavery.

Abundance | Death | Fault | Labor | People | Poverty | Struggle | System | Youth | Youth | Child | Fault | Old |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.

Indispensable | Insanity | Man | System |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked and clubbed into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regulars, traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested by spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and sold out by leaders, but notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.

Better | Man | Order | Prison | System |

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

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

Patriotism is as sickening today as it has ever been. I was watching the news before you came and there was a lot of coverage of Kosovo and the problems there. They showed footage of people burning an American flag. And the newscaster got all broken up and teary-eyed. He says, "I guess [sob] I just feel something here, folks, when I see the American flag being burned." And I said, You fucking asshole. Whatever happened to the news?

Price | Proletariat | Question | Right | System |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Of course, Socialism is violently denounced by the capitalist press and by all the brood of subsidized contributors to magazine literature, but this only confirms the view that the advance of 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.

Business | Care | Earth | Knowing | Men | Question | Society | System | Society | Business | Old |

Eugenio Montale

The man of today has inherited a nervous system that cannot stand the current living conditions. Waiting to form the man of tomorrow, today's man reacts to the changed conditions by not objecting to shock but doing mass massificandosi.

Future | Man | System | Will |

Eugenio Montale

The most dangerous aspect of present-day life is the dissolution of the feeling of individual responsibility. Mass solitude has done away with any difference between the internal and the external, between the intellectual and the physical.

Man | System | Waiting |

Ezra Taft Benson

And so this great nation has come into being under the inspiration of the Almighty to accomplish his purposes. Through modern revelation we have had made very plain to us something of the mission of America and the establishment of our national Constitution.

Blessings | Free enterprise | Men | Mind | People | Right | System | Time |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

The anguished suspense of watching the lips you hunger for, framing the words, the death sentence, of sheer triteness!

System |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

What's right with America and what's right with Islam have a lot in common. At their highest levels, both worldviews reflect an enlightened recognition that all of humankind shares a common Creator - that we are, indeed, brothers and sisters.

Government | System | Government |

Ezra Taft Benson

Our Creator endowed each one of us with certain rights at birth, among which are the rights to life, liberty, speech, and conscience, to name a few. These are not just human rights; they are divine rights. When these rights are not permitted expression by a nation, that nation becomes inhibited in its progress and development, and its leaders are responsible before God for suffocating sacred rights. This native endowment is what separates man from the animals. It causes men to want to be good and to seek higher aspirations. It creates in man a desire to better his life and his station in life.

Business | Freedom | Future | Guarantee | Individual | Judgment | People | Power | Public | Rights | System | Wants | Wishes | Business |

Ezra Taft Benson

Unless we do his teachings, we do not demonstrate faith in him.

Capacity | Children | Free enterprise | People | System | Will | World |

Ezra Taft Benson

In recognizing God as the source of their rights, the Founding Fathers declared Him to be the ultimate authority for their basis of law. This led them to the conviction that people do not make law but merely acknowledge preexisting law, giving it specific application. The Constitution was conceived to be such an expression of higher law. And when their work was done, James Madison wrote: “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution” (The Federalist, no. 37).

Control | Government | Initiative | Means | Order | People | Power | Restraint | System | Government |

Ezra Taft Benson

One day in the middle of an important examination in high school, the point of my lead pencil broke. In those days we used pocket knives to sharpen our pencils. I had forgotten my penknife and turned to ask a neighbor for his. The teacher saw this; he accused me of cheating. When I tried to explain, he gave me a tongue-lashing for lying; worse, he forbade me to play on the basketball team in the upcoming game. I could see that the more I protested the angrier he seemed to become. But again and again I stubbornly told what had happened. Even when the coach pleaded my cause, the teacher refused to budge. The disgrace was almost more than I could bear. Then, just minutes before the game, he had a change of heart and I was permitted to play. But there was no joy in it. We lost the game; and though that hurt, by far the deeper pain was being branded a cheat and a liar. Looking back. I know that lesson was God-sent. Character is shaped in just such crucibles. My parents believed me: they were understanding and encouraging. Supported by them and a clear conscience, I began to realize that when you are at peace with your Maker you can, if not ignore human criticism, at least rise above it. And I learned something else - the importance of avoiding even the appearance of evil. Though I was innocent, circumstance made me look guilty. Since this could so easily be true in many of life's situations, I made a resolution to keep even the appearance of my actions above question, as far as possible. And it struck me, too, that if this injustice happened to me, it could happen to others, and I must not judge their actions simply on appearances.

Evil | Freedom | God | Man | Men | Reason | Rebellion | Sacred | Soul | System | Tyranny | Will | God |

Ezra Taft Benson

The United States Constitution has been in existence longer than any written constitution in history. It has been a blessing, not only to our land, but to the world as well. Many nations have wisely adopted concepts and provisions of our Constitution, just as was prophesied.

Atheism | Children | Civilization | Education | Government | Public | Right | System | Will | World | Government |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

If Muslims curse the Christians, then the Christians will curse the Muslims. And people will curse Allah, and Allah will hold us responsible for that.

Public | System | Teacher | Victim |