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

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.

Taste |

Gustave Flaubert

Without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most swagger monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a street-pavement, and a savage is better than a hairdresser!

Love | Plan |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The war on privilege will never end. Its next great campaign will be against the special privileges of the underprivileged.

Force | Malice | Reason |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.

Pleasure | Understanding |

Haile Selassie

Here is our opportunity and our challenge. If the nuclear powers are prepared to declare a truce, let us seize the moment to strengthen the institutions and procedures which will serve as the means for the pacific settlement of disputes among men.

Pleasure | Will |

Haile Selassie

Twenty-seven years ago, as Emperor of Ethiopia, I mounted the rostrum in Geneva, Switzerland, to address the League of Nations and to appeal for relief from the destruction which had been unleashed against my defenseless nation, by the Fascist invader.

Husband | Love |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

People | Reason |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction... governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. It?s one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.

Evil | Man | Pleasure | Understanding |

Hannah Arendt

It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.

Love |

Hans Rosling

Health cannot be bought at the supermarket. You have to invest in health. You have to get kids into schooling. You have to train health staff. You have to educate the population.

Love | Old |

Italian Proverbs

The gallows will have its own at last.

Kill | Knowledge |

Italian Proverbs

Saying is one thing, doing another.

Goals | People | Pleasure | Progress | Success | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Save something for the man that rides on the white horse.

Right | Study | Will |

Italian Proverbs

Shame take him that shame thinketh.

Love | People |

Italian Proverbs

That that comes of a cat will catch mice.

Day | Faith | Reality | Reason | Will | World |

Italian Proverbs

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

Ability | Reason | Story | Thinking |

Italian Proverbs

ne with the courage to laugh is master of the world almost as much as the one who is ready to die.

Love |

Italian Proverbs

No one perceives where the shoe pinches but he who wears it.

Efficiency | Knowledge | Money | World |

Italian Proverbs

One may have good eyes and yet see nothing.

Action | Man | Prejudice | Reason |

Italian Proverbs

No day but has its evening.

Competition | Focus | Important | Love | Question | Will |