Great Throughts Treasury

"The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world. I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee to slur at it."

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."

"The parents have a right to say that no teacher paid by their money shall rob their children of faith in God and send them back to their homes skeptical, or infidels, or agnostics, or atheists."

"The poor man who takes property by force is called a thief, but the creditor who can by legislation make a debtor pay a dollar twice as large as he borrowed is lauded as the friend of a sound currency. The man who wants the people to destroy the Government is an anarchist, but the man who wants the Government to destroy the people is a patriot."

"The right of the tax-payers to decide what shall be taught can hardly be disputed. Someone must decide. The hand that writes the pay-check rules the school; if not, to whom shall the right to decide such important matters be intrusted?"

"The so-called theistic evolutionists refuse to admit that they are atheists, contending that they believe in a God back of creation; they argue that evolution is God's method, but they put God so far away as to practically destroy a sense of God's presence in the daily life and a sense of responsibility to Him. At least, that is the tendency, and since the so-called theistic evolutionists borrow all their facts from atheistic evolutionists and differ from them only in the origin of life, the istic evolution may be described as an aesthetic administered to young Christians to deaden the pain while their religion is being removed by the materialists."

"The temptation was an absolute truth and the serpent was the tempter. For his insolence the snake was punished and condemned to crawl on its belly forever."

"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you."

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests up on them."

"There can be no settlement of a great cause without discussion, and people will not discuss a cause until their attention is drawn to it."

"This community is ready for healing."

"This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty?the cause of humanity."

"Two people in a conversation amount to four people talking. The four are what one person says, what he really wanted to say, what his listener heard, and what he thought he heard."

"We object to bringing this question down to the level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest over a principle."

"Who are the people in the land of Nod? Where did Cain's wife come from? There are mysteries we should not question."

"Why should not atheists build their own colleges and employ their own teachers if they want to teach atheism? Why should not agnostics build their own colleges and employ their own teachers if they want to teach agnosticism? Only a small percentage of the American people believe that man is descendant of the ape, monkey, or of any other form of animal life below man; why should not those who worship brute ancestors build their own colleges, and employ their own teachers for the training of their own children for their brute doctrine? There are no atheistic schools, and there are no agnostic schools-why should there be, if atheists and agnostics can save the expense of building their own schools and the expense of employing their own teachers by using the public schools for the propagation of their doctrine?"

"You cannot judge a man's life by the success of a moment, by the victory of an hour, or even by the results of a year. You must view his life as a whole. You must stand where you can see the man as he treads the entire path that leads from the cradle to the grave ? now crossing the plain, now climbing the steeps, now passing through pleasant fields, now wending his way with difficulty between rugged rocks ? tempted, tried, tested, triumphant."

"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country."

"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."