This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Absolute freedom mocks justice; absolute justice denies freedom.
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
Constraint | Government | Justice | Men | Reason | Will | Government |
The weaker are always anxious for justice and equality. The strong pay no heed of either.
Equality does not seem to take the same form in acts of justice and in friendship; for in acts of justice what is equal in the primary sense is that which is in proportion to merit, while quantitative equality is secondary, but in friendship quantitative equality is primary and proportion to merit secondary.
Equality | Justice | Merit | Sense | Friendship |
Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on man’s rights; he will rather have regard for everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness.
Compassion | Conduct | Guarantee | Harm | Justice | Kindness | Man | Regard | Rights | Will | Forgive |
Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical.
Justice |
Force without justice is tyrannical; justice without force is impotent.
Custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason or justice. Custom without this would pass for tyranny; but the sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire. They are principles natural to man.
Custom | Desire | Justice | Man | People | Principles | Reason | Tyranny | Will | Think |
Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart. I set it down as a fact that if all men know what each said to the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
Absence | Deceit | Disguise | Falsehood | Friend | Heart | Hypocrisy | Illusion | Justice | Life | Life | Man | Men | Passion | Reason | Regard | Sincerity | Society | Truth | World | Society | Friends |
There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.
Chance | Cruelty | God | Humanity | Justice | Mercy | Merit | Motives | Service | Will | Cruelty | Value | Victim |
As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder.
Death | Evil | Husband | Justice | Law | Life | Life | Morality | Mother | Murder | Retaliation | Murder |
Cheating thrives where unfairness reigns, along with economic anxiety. It thrives where government is the weak captive of wealthy interests and lacks the will to do justice impartially. It thrives where money and success are king, and winners are fawned over whatever their daily abuses of power.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Government | Justice | Money | Power | Success | Unfairness | Will | Government |
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
The beginning and the greatest good is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy; for from prudence are spring all the other virtues, and it teaches us that it is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honorably and justly, nor, again, to live a life of prudence, honor and justice without living pleasantly. For the virtues are by nature bound up with the pleasant life, and the pleasant life is inseparable from them.
Beginning | Good | Honor | Justice | Life | Life | Nature | Philosophy | Prudence | Prudence |