Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Zoë Akins

American Playwright, Author and Poet awarded Pulitzer Prize

"Nothing seems so tragic to one who is old as the death of one who is young, and this alone proves that life is a good thing."

"Even the great can have only their own sort of greatness."

"Forgetting is the cost of living cheerfully."

"It is much more exquisite to be blown from the tree as a flower than to be shaken down as a shriveled and bitter fruit."

"It's all right to tell a wife the brutal truth, but you've got to go sort of easy with your lady-love."

"Nothing seems so tragic to one who is old as the death of one who is young and this alone proves that life is a good thing."

"Of bird and prophet and his light shall lead On through the darkness to eventual light, To undiscovered wealth, to newer need."

"No one can ever help loving anyone."

"The success-haters. That's what I call them -- the people who have never got what they want and turned sour on everybody who has. The world's full of them. As soon as you've made good they begin to watch for you to fail."

"To accuse is so easy that it is infamous to do so where proof is impossible!"