Tommy Howells

A teacher, thinker, and friend at Whitman College from 1938 through 1987. Here you'll find quotes recorded by his students during class.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

One mark of an idea that is hard to keep hold of is that the writer will contradict himself; it takes distance and time to see the convergence of opposites.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

What you cannot solve by language, you will eventually solve by guns.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

The way to be original is to say exactly what one thinks in the way one exactly thinks and feels it.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Thoreau, who has almost nothing, feels how lucky he is to have the universe on his side.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

One of the advantages of being a master of language is you occasionally say the truth without knowing it.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Plato worried about shadows – perhaps he would have liked a world perpetually at high noon.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Institution: the echo of an inspiration no longer heard.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

The twentieth century is a psychological, not an ethical age. It has gotten rid of sin, but it cannot seem to exorcise guilt.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Justice is empirical restraint on the nature of man.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Every culture must learn anew that there are limits to human arrogance.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

America needs not only presidents but men with the capacity for being presidents.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

We vote our hope, or we vote our fear.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Abraham Lincoln was the classic American statesman. He was democratic in the breath of his sympathy, republican in his regard for political law and order. He made the institution of the presidency what it is: the most powerful executive office created by free people.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Freedom becomes concrete when someone tries to take it away.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Americans cannot stand the hatred of others – this is why we will never meet the fate of the Romans or the English.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

A symbol should liberate the soul, not press it to death.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

To be contemporary you must know how you got there.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

Tragedy is not bigger, but has more functioning parts. It is more complex, therefore tragedy is a larger and higher form of art. This is what happens when the literary critic is a biologist.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

A really good book makes us feel that we have written it. Maybe there is only one great human spirit that writes books.

[Tommy Howells @TommyHowells]

The islands in the river of our experience are the books we have read.