This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved. As a rule the majority are wrong, the minority is usually right.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Democracy | Government | Power | Government |
The whole record of civilization is a record of the failure of money as a higher incentive. The enormous majority of men never make any serious effort to get rich. The few who are sordid enough to do so easily become millionaires with a little luck, and astonish the others by the contrast between their riches and their stupidity... The belief in money as an incentive is founded on the observation that people will do for money what they will not do for anything else.
Belief | Civilization | Contrast | Effort | Enough | Failure | Little | Luck | Majority | Men | Money | Observation | People | Riches | Stupidity | Will | Riches | Failure |
Patriotism, public opinion, parental duty, discipline, religion, morality, are only fine names for intimidation.
Discipline | Duty | Intimidation | Morality | Opinion | Patriotism | Public | Religion |
The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.
Both houses of Congress have, by their joint Committee, requested me “To recommend to the People of the United States, a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful Hearts the many Signal Favours of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Form of Government for their Safety and Happiness”... That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind Care and Protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation; for the signal and manifold Mercies, and the favourable Interpositions of his Providence in the Course & Conclusion of the late War; for the great Degree of Tranquillity, Union, and Plenty, which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational Manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of Government for our Safety and Happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious Liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general, for all the great and various Favours which he hath been pleased to confer upon us... to enable us all, whether in public or private Stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually... to promote the Knowledge and Practice of true Religion and Virtue, and the increase of Science among them and us; and generally to grant unto all mankind such a Degree of temporal Prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Care | Day | God | Government | Knowledge | Liberty | Mankind | Means | Opportunity | People | Plenty | Practice | Prayer | Prosperity | Providence | Public | Religion | Science | Tranquility | Virtue | Virtue | War | Government |
Harold Nicolson, fully Sir Harold George Nicolson
The public is bored by foreign affairs until a crisis arises; and then it is guided by; feelings rather than by thoughts.
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their action.
Action | Consequences | Opinion | Public |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse.
Evil | Fault | Government | Majority | Men | Government | Fault | Think |
Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
The public does not in the long run respect leaders who mirror its own insecurities or see only the symptoms of crises rather than the long-term trends. The role of the leader is to assume the burden of acting on the basis of a confidence in his own assessment of the direction of events and how they can be influenced. Failing that, crises will multiply, which is another way of saying that a leader has lost control over events.
Confidence | Control | Events | Public | Respect | Will | Respect | Leader |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office. There is little time for leaders to reflect. They are locked in an endless battle in which the urgent constantly gains on the important. The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the pressure of circumstance.
Battle | Choice | Convictions | Important | Life | Life | Little | Office | Public | Struggle | Time | Will |
Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds, who sow religious and class dissensions. those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly. Those who demand special favors against the interest of the commonwealth. Those who regard public office as a source of private gain. Those who exalt the military over the civil. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war.
Democracy | Freedom of speech | Freedom | Justice | Law | Majority | Mockery | Office | Public | Regard | Rule | Speech | Trials | War | World |
It is an undoubted fact that an overwhelming majority of religious persecutors have been men of the purest intentions, of the most admirable and unsullied morals… Such men as these are not bad, they are only ignorant; ignorant of the nature of truth, ignorant of the consequences of their own acts.
Consequences | Majority | Men | Nature | Truth |
If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.
Criticism | Democracy | Dissent | Government | Government |