Great Throughts Treasury

A database of quotes

Louis Kronenberger

American Critic, Essayist, Novelist, Editor and Author


"Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it."

"With intellectuals, moral thought is often less a tonic that quickens ethical action than a narcotic that deadens it."


"If it is the great delusion of moralists to suppose that all previous ages were less sinful than their own, then it is the great delusion of intellectuals to supposed that all previous ages were less sick."

"The trouble with our age [twentieth century] is that it is all signpost and no destination."

"Along with being forever on the move, one is forever in a hurry, leaving things inadvertently behind - friend or fishing tackle, old raincoat or old allegiance."

"The test of interesting people is that subject matter doesn't matter."

"In art there are tears that lie too deep for thought."





"For tens of millions of people [television] has become habit-forming, brain-softening, taste-degrading."



"In the history of mankind, fanaticism has caused more harm than vice."