This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The problem with intelligent design theory is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable: Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet--a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school’s curriculum.
George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs, and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure. However, material assistance alone is not sufficient. The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership.
Better | Democracy | Existence | Faith | Force | Freedom | Good | Important | Insecurity | Inspiration | Means | Men | Nations | Need | Opinion | People | Present | Principles | Progress | Strength | Tyranny | Understanding | World | Leadership |
Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.
Mediocrity | Public |
Golda Meir, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson
It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? . . . Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.
George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.
Difficulty | Earth | Man | Need | Peace | People | Public | World | Think |
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
Children are never sure of their abilities. A public attack on intelligence hits their most vulnerable spot. Virulent criticism doesn't motivate children to improve; on the contrary, it ruins their initiative.
Children | Criticism | Intelligence | Public |
Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Capacity | Democracy | Inclination | Injustice | Injustice | Justice |
There is no accountability in the public school system - except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp.
Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
Only a few rare souls in a century, to whose class I make no pretension, count much in the great flow of this Republic. The life stream of this nation is the generations of millions of human particles acting under the impulses of advancing ideas and national ideals gathered from a thousand springs... We are but transitory officials in government whose duty is to keep these channels clear and to strengthen and extend these dikes. What counts toward the honor of public officials is that they sustain the national ideals upon which are patterned the design of these channels of progress and the construction of these dikes of safety.
Design | Duty | Government | Honor | Ideals | Ideas | Life | Life | Progress | Public | Government |
If a man went simply by what he saw, he might be tempted to affirm that the essence of democracy is melodrama.
More is given to us than to any people at any time before; and, therefore, more is required of us. We have made, and still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. Failing these, civilization must pass into destruction. It cannot be maintained on the ethics of savagery. For civilization knits men more and more closely together, and constantly tends to subordinate the individual to the whole, and to make more and more important social conditions.
Civilization | Ethics | Important | Individual | Men | People | Public | Sense | Time |
Marshall McLuhan, fully Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.
Ida Tarbell, fully Ida Minerva Tarbell
Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves has behind it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way to destroy the initiative, to benumb the creative impulse above all else essential to the vitality and growth of democratic ideals.
Ambition | Democracy | Destroy | Growth | Impulse | Means | Standardization | Ambition |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act according to their beliefs.
No other profession is subject to the public contempt and derision that sometimes befalls lawyers; the bitter fruit of public incomprehension of the law itself and its dynamics.