This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
A democracy can obtain truth only as the result of experience; and many nations may perish while they are awaiting the consequences of their errors.
Consequences | Democracy | Experience | Nations | Truth | Wisdom |
Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry
The majority of those who flatter themselves on their knowledge of the human heart do not separate their boasted insight from their unfavorable feeling about humanity... Nothing indeed imparts a psychological air so much as an habitual attitude of depreciation.
Heart | Humanity | Insight | Knowledge | Majority | Nothing | Wisdom |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Eager and apprehensive men of small property constitute the class that is constantly increased by the equality of conditions. Hence in democratic communities the majority of the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one.
Equality | Majority | Men | People | Property | Revolution | Wisdom |
Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
The man whom neither riches nor luxury nor grandeur can render happy may, with a book in his hand, forget all his troubles under the friendly shade of every tree, and may experience pleasures as infinite as they are varied, as pure as they are lasting, as lively as they are unfading, and as compatible with every public duty as they are contributory to private happiness.
Duty | Experience | Happy | Luxury | Man | Public | Riches | Troubles | Wisdom | Riches |
Roland Barthes, fully Roland Gérard Barthes
What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
If the meaning of life is not a mystery, if leading meaningful lives is within the power of all of us, then we do not need to ask the question `What’s it all about?’ in despair. We can look around us and see the many ways in which life can be meaningful. We can see the value of happiness while accepting that it is not everything, which will make it easier for us at those times when it eludes us. We can learn to appreciate the pleasure of life without becoming slaves to appetites which can never be satisfied. We can see the value of success, while not interpreting that too narrowly, so that we can appreciate the project of striving to become what we want to be as well as the more visible, public signs of success. We can see the value of seizing the day, without leading us into a desperate scramble to grasp the ungraspable moment. We can appreciate the value in helping others lead meaningful lives, too, without thinking that altruism demands everything we have. And finally, we can recognize the value of love, as perhaps the most powerful motivator to do anything at all.
Altruism | Day | Despair | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mystery | Need | Pleasure | Power | Public | Question | Success | Thinking | Will | Happiness | Learn | Value |
Our American system of government by lobbyist guarantees us a form of taxation with representation that the founding father did not foresee: special interests get the representation while the broad public gets the taxation.
Father | Government | Public | System | Government |
The final test of democracy is its capacity to breed leaders.
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
Argument | Conversation | Democracy |
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Democracy | Government | Time | Government |
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces [him]; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.
We narratively represent our selves in part in order to answer certain questions of identity. It is useful to distinguish two different aims of self-representation that in the end are deeply intertwined. First, there is self-representation for the sake of self-understanding. This is the story we tell ourselves to understand ourselves for who we are. The ideal here is convergence between self-representation and an acceptable version of the story of our actual identity. Second, there is self-representation for public dissemination, whose aim is underwriting successful social interaction.
Aims | Distinguish | Order | Public | Self | Story | Understanding | Understand |
We are at ease with a moral judgment made against someone’s private sin - lust or greed. We are much less comfortable judging someone’s public ethic - those decisions that can lead to such outcomes as aggression, the abuse of the environment, the neglect of the needy.
Abuse | Aggression | Greed | Judgment | Lust | Neglect | Public | Sin |