This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
A statesman should follow public opinion as a coachman follows his horses; having firm hold on the reins, and guiding them.
A statesman makes the occasion, but the occasion makes the politician.
Wisdom |
Herbert Read, fully Sir Herbert Edward Read
Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency.
The great difference between the real statesman and the pretender is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts on expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for immortality.
Day | Future | Immortality | Present | Principles |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
A statesman who cannot shape events will soon be engulfed by them.
It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.
Experience | Mankind | Will |
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift.
The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman think about the next generation.
Think |
In essence, the conflict that exists today is no more than an old-style struggle for power, once again presented to mankind in semi religious trappings. The difference is that, this time, the development of atomic power has imbued the struggle with a ghostly character; for both parties know and admit that, should the quarrel deteriorate into actual war, mankind is doomed. Despite this knowledge, statesmen in responsible positions on both sides continue to employ the well-known technique of seeking to intimidate and demoralize the opponent by marshaling superior military strength. They do so even though such a policy entails the risk of war and doom. Not one statesman in a position of responsibility has dared to pursue the only course that holds out any promise of peace, the course of supranational security, since for a statesman to follow such a course would be tantamount to political suicide. Political passions, once they have been fanned into flame, exact their victims… [These were his last words]
Mankind | Policy | Position | Power | Promise | Responsibility | Risk | Struggle | War |
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley
A woman who pretends to laugh at love is like a child who sings at night when he is afraid
No foreign policy-no matter how ingenious-has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of few and carried in the hearts of many.
Business | Care | Competence | Debt | Defeat | Destiny | Effort | Energy | Honor | Industry | Law | Men | Nations | Nothing | Policy | Power | Prosperity | Struggle | Wealth | Will | Business |
In our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships.
Desire | Duty | Gratitude | History | Individual | Man | Means | Men | Nations | Peace | Power | Right | Surrender | Thought | Time | Title | World | Thought |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
A successful outcome shows what hard work, perseverance and taking advantage of your opportunities will do for you.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
And last are the few whose delight is in meditation and understanding; who yearn not for goods, nor for victory, but for knowledge; who leave both market and battlefield to lose themselves in the quiet clarity of secluded thought; whose will is a light rather than a fire, whose haven is not power but truth: these are the men of wisdom, who stand aside unused by the world.
What is fanaticism to-day is the fashionable creed to-morrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after.