Great Throughts Treasury
This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Eugène Ionesco, born Eugen Ionescu
Romanian and French Dramatist and Playwright of the Theatre of the Absurd depicting in a tangible way the solitude and insignificance of human existence
"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question."
"Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
"A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind. "
"Beauty is a precious trace that eternity causes to appear to us and that it takes away from us. A manifestation of eternity, and a sign of death as well. "
"Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us."
"There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation."
"Everything that has been will be, everything that will be is, everything that will be has been."
"No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa."