This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Conservatism is the politics of reality.
Conservatism | Politics | Reality |
Charles de Gaulle, fully Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Politics |
Edward Bernays, fully Edward Louis Bernays
In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied with our present condition or with our past attainments, and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal excellence. Hence the ardour of the selfish to better their fortunes, and to add to their personal accomplishments; and hence the zeal of the patriot and philosopher to advance the virtue and the happiness of the human race. Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes.
Better | Destroy | Enjoyment | Excellence | Human race | Imagination | Improvement | Man | Mind | Past | Present | Race | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Zeal | Happiness |
Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
Enough | Politics | Think | Understand |
I know that theater people often have very simplistic view of politics and tend to express very black and white patriotic sentiments but perhaps that is because we know the value of illusion, how it can help strengthen the weak, and stimulate the weary
Science, history and politics are not suited for discussion except by experts. Others are simply in the position of requiring more information; and, till they have acquired all available information, cannot do anything but accept on authority the opinions of those better qualified.
Authority | Better | Discussion | History | Politics | Position |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Politics |
To let politics become a cesspool, and then avoid it because it is a cesspool, is a double crime.
Politics |
No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.
Corruption | Politics | Science |
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
Love says respect the other as an end unto himself or herself; never use the other as a means. Nobody is a means for you, everybody is an end. But then ambition will flop, and our whole educational system depends on ambitiousness, our politics depends on ambition, our religions depend on ambition.
Ambition | Means | Politics | Respect | System | Will | Ambition | Respect |
A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.
Mankind | Speculation | Zeal |
Jayaprakash Narayan, known as JP Narayan, Jayaprakash or Loknayak
True politics is about promotion of human happiness.
Politics |
Jayaprakash Narayan, known as JP Narayan, Jayaprakash or Loknayak
If you really care for freedom, liberty, There cannot be any democracy or liberal institution without politics. The only true antidote to the perversions of politics is more politics and better politics. Not negation of politics.
James Barrett Reston, nicknamed "Scotty"
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.
Indifference | Politics |
Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.
Politics | Leadership |
There are no generalizations in American politics that vested selfishness cannot cut through.
Politics | Selfishness |