Huston Smith Quotes

Asked to make a list of the men who have most dominated the thinking of the modern world, many educated people would name Freud, Einstein, Marx and Darwin. Of these four, only Darwin was not Jewish. In a world where Jews are only a tiny percentage of the population, what is the secret of the disproportionate importance the Jews have had in the history of Western culture?

There is a single thread of attitude, a single direction of flow, that joins our present time to its early burgeoning in Mediterranean civilization.

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority.

My mom was Jewish, so some would call me Jewish.

I'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all.

The birthplace of 'Western' civilization is generally agreed to be Greece, and its birth date is generally agreed to be some time during the 6th century B.C.E. Obviously, there is not one single dramatic moment that definitively started the whole thing.

Western civilization shapes the content of my films, provides me with subjects that haven't been used before.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

Well, I think, you know, the arts are really what - one of the things that make this country strong. We always think it's our economy or our military power, but in fact, I think it's our culture, our civilization, our ideas, our creativity.

Myself, first of all, I am a Jew. And that is the most important thing for me.

All sorts of other lies are being spread today, I do not know what else they will invent. I've heard that I'm of Jewish descent, but I found, I knew of my ancestors in Zagorje from around 350 years ago, and I said, maybe it would be good to have some of that, I guess I would be richer, I might not have become a Communist.

I'm very spiritual and I'm Jewish by faith. I'm not a practising Jew, I'm more of a recreational Jew. I celebrate the holidays and I try to inform my kids about their heritage because I think we all at some point have to defend our heritage and if they get picked on I want them to know why.

It's our culture, Christian history, that's what formed me. Even as an atheist, I believe. We're just built that way.

I love California. It has such a strong contribution to the history of culture, and popular culture. For better and worse, of course. Even the worst can be interesting to some degree sometimes for somebody creative.

My wife is Jewish, and therefore, it's my children's birthright to be Jewish.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.

A people without a history is like the wind over buffalo grass.

Is there not some justification for the opinion that the United States owe their very existence to the Jews? And if this be so, how much more can it be asserted that Jewish influence made the United States just what they are—that is, American? For what we call Americanism is nothing else, if we may say so, than the Jewish spirit distilled.

May this civic and social landmark ... be a constant reminder of the inspiring service that has been rendered to civilization by men and women of the Jewish faith. May we recall the long array of those who have been eminent in statecraft, in science, in literature, in art, in the professions, in business, in finance, in philanthropy and in the spiritual life of the world.

Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.

We can't restore our civilization with someome else's babies.

We are a mixed marriage, so our kids were raised with a little less Judaism than I was raised with.

The alt-right believes that Western culture is currently imperiled and that the elites on both sides of the political divide are not doing enough to protect it. In that analysis, I think they're right.

Both of my parents were first-generation Americans, the children of Jews who left Eastern Europe around the turn of the century.