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

Hannah Arendt

What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one's own efforts.

Time |

Hans Hoffman

The product of movement and counter-movement is tension. When tension ? working strength ? is expressed, it endows the work of art with the living effect of coordinated, though opposing, forces.

Time |

Hannah Arendt

What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.

History | Price | Time |

Hannah Arendt

What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique ("a great task that occurs once in two thousand years"), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did. The troops of the Einsatzgruppenhad been drafted from the Armed S.S., a military unit with hardly more crimes in its record than any ordinary unit of the German Army, and their commanders had been chosen by Heydrich from the S.S. ‚lite with academic degrees. Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering. The trick used by Himmler ? who apparently was rather strongly afflicted by these instinctive reactions himself ? was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!

Good | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

The best defense is a good offence.

Time | Learn |

Italian Proverbs

The eye of the master fattens the horse.

Experience | Life | Life | Principles | Psychology | Time | Youth | Youth |

Italian Proverbs

That which the wise man does first, the fool does last.

People | Present | Relationship |

Italian Proverbs

Needs must when the devil drives.

Harmony | Object | Time |

Italian Proverbs

No day in which you learn something is a complete loss.

Truth | Understand |

Italian Proverbs

Sons may look and behave like their fathers. This is due to inheritance and the example observed closely and daily.

Belief | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

No one gets rich quickly if he is honest.

Money | Research | Time |

Italian Proverbs

One devil knows another.

Truth | Vision |

Italian Proverbs

So good that he is good for nothing.

Effort | Good | Internet | People | Power | Promise | Time |

Italian Proverbs

Some things can be improved by training, others require innate talent.

Modesty | Teach | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Dawn | Evolution | History | Individual | Life | Life | Sense | Survival | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

The devil is bad because he is old.

Ability | Age | Art | Control | Culture | Humor | Memory | Need | Time | Work | World | Art |

Italian Proverbs

Through being too knowing the fox lost his tail.

Government | Guilt | People | Public | Truth | Warning | Government |

Italian Proverbs

There is no helping him who will not be advised.

Enough | History | Justice | Time | Will |

Italian Proverbs

To the person with little shame, the whole world is his.

Capacity | Self | Time | Unity |

Italian Proverbs

The mills of god grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.

Comfort | Time | Will | Loss |