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

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.

Despair | Individual | Land | Man | People | Sense | Will | Woman |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.

History | People | Thought | Will | Think | Thought |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

First of all, Theodore Roosevelt and Charles W. Fairbanks, candidates for President and Vice-President, respectively, deny the class struggle and this almost infallibly fixes their status as friends of capital and enemies of labor. They insist that they can serve both; but the fact is obvious that only one can be served and that one at the expense of the other. Mr. RooseveltÂ’s whole political career proves it.

Cause | Good | Traitor | Treason | Worry |

Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

In politics one may remain aloof and become irrelevant or get involved and get corrupted.

Control |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

I shared, naturally, in that hatred of organized labor which has been the one political constant in my lifetime, culminating in Ronald Reagan's most popular gesture, the smashing of the air-controllers' union. No alternative view of organized labor has ever come to us through the popular media. If labor leaders were not crooks like Jimmy Hoffa, they were in the pay of Moscow.

Good | Human race | People | Race | Regard | Religion | System | World |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.

Good | Human race | Nature | Race | Reason | Worth |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.

Balance | Life | Life | Nothing | Reason |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

God | Good | People | Practice | Prison | God |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The political solidarity of the working class means the death of despotism, the birth of freedom, the sunrise of civilization.

People |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.

Language | People | Time | Will | Words |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.

People |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

As a rule hogs are only raised where they have good health and grow fat. Any old place will do to raise human beings.

Capitalism | Cause | Destroy | Duty | Good | Power | Time | Traitor | Treason | World | Worry |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest — this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it. As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.

Age | Awakening | Conquest | Duty | Glory | History | Nothing | Object | Reason | War | Wealth | World |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Patriotism is as sickening today as it has ever been. I was watching the news before you came and there was a lot of coverage of Kosovo and the problems there. They showed footage of people burning an American flag. And the newscaster got all broken up and teary-eyed. He says, "I guess [sob] I just feel something here, folks, when I see the American flag being burned." And I said, You fucking asshole. Whatever happened to the news?

Price | Proletariat | Question | Right | System |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earthÂ…and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the readerÂ’s attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.

Evil | Freedom | Happy | History | People | Purpose | Purpose |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.

People |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The elimination of rent, interest, profit and the production of wealth to satisfy the wants of all the people. That is the demand.

Equality | Philosophy | Principles | Race |