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

Gustave Flaubert

None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.

Play |

Gustavo GutiƩrrez

If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals.

Think |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The display of status symbols is usually a result of low self-esteem. The self-confident person can afford to project a modest image.

Ends |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once.

Church |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Politicians seldom if ever get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged? Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can?t fulfill ? that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm or alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope?

Church | Little |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull.

Church | Miracles |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Ends |

Hans Albrecht Bethe

As the Director of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos, I participated at the most senior level in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic weapons. Now, at age 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior persons alive. Looking back at the half century since that time, I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been used since World War II, mixed with the horror that tens of thousands of such weapons have been built since that time?one hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have imagined. Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills. Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.

Ends |

Italian Proverbs

One who wants to keep their yard tidy does not reserve a plot for the weeds.

Change | Civilization | Future | Global | Health | Inconvenient | Land | Security | Will |

Italian Proverbs

Poor men's money and cowards' weapons are often flourished.

Self |

Italian Proverbs

Step by step one goes to Rome.

History |

Italian Proverbs

Of what does not concern you say nothing, good or bad.

Consideration | Man | Nothing |

Italian Proverbs

No news is good news.

Innovation |

Italian Proverbs

Of the wealth of the world each has as much as they take.

Affliction | Gloom | Light |

Italian Proverbs

Out of a great evil often comes a great good.

Order | Universe |

Italian Proverbs

She who is born a beauty is born betrothed.

Italian Proverbs

Necessity and opportunity may make a coward valiant.

Universe |

Italian Proverbs

Once resolved, the trouble is over.

Church | Counsel | Rest | Counsel |

Italian Proverbs

One today is worth two tomorrows.

Society | Success | Society |