This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Asked who was the worst president, he responded, Oh, there were so many of them. Certainly the silliest was Reagan. The most empty. [George H.W.] Bush is in the running for the worst.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
Time |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest — this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it. As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
Age | Awakening | Conquest | Duty | Glory | History | Nothing | Object | Reason | War | Wealth | World |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Basler finds my Lincoln the 'phoniest historical novel I have ever had the pleasure of reading.'... Also, 'more than half the book could never have happened as told.' Unfortunately, he doesn't say which half. If I knew, we could then cut it free from the phony half and publish the result as Basler's Vidal's Lincoln.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
The American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earthÂ…and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the readerÂ’s attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.
Evil | Freedom | Happy | History | People | Purpose | Purpose |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.
People |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
The elimination of rent, interest, profit and the production of wealth to satisfy the wants of all the people. That is the demand.
Equality | Philosophy | Principles | Race |
In adverse hours the friendship of the good shines most; each prosperous day commands its friends.
I would prefer as friend a good man ignorant than one more clever who is evil too.
Judgment | Understand |
But woe to him, who left to moan, reviews the hours of brightness gone.
In order to keep that temper which is so difficult, and yet so necessary to preserve, you may please to consider, that nothing can be more unjust or ridiculous, than to be angry with another because he is not of your opinion. The interests, education, and means by which men attain their knowledge, are so very different, that it is impossible they should all think alike; and he has at least as much reason to be angry with you, as you with him. Sometimes, to keep yourself cool, it may be of service to ask yourself fairly, what might have been your opinion, had you all the biasses of education and interest your adversary may possibly have?
We are generally so much pleased with any little accomplishments, either of body or mind, which have once made us remarkable in the world, that we endeavor to persuade ourselves it is not in the power of time to rob us of them. We are eternally pursuing the same methods which first procured us the applauses of mankind. It is from this notion that an author writes on, though he is come to dotage; without ever considering that his memory is impaired, and that he hath lost that life, and those spirits, which formerly raised his fancy and fired his imagination. The same folly hinders a man from submitting his behavior to his age, and makes Clodius, who was a celebrated dancer at five-and-twenty, still love to hobble in a minuet, though he is past threescore. It is this, in a word, which fills the town with elderly fops and superannuated coquettes.
Human nature | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Nothing | Will |
It is a good thing to be rich and strong, but it is a better thing to be loved.
Today not even a universal fire could make the torrential poetic production of our time disappear. But it is exactly a question of production, that is, of hand-made products which are subject to the laws of taste and fashion.
Eugenio Maria de Hostos (y Bonilla)
Slavery has as many shapes among us as there are things we need.