This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The National Socialist (Nazi) party had 10 million members, of whom at most 150,000 were criminals. It would be grotesque to stick the label of criminal on every former member of the party.
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley
So it has always been with tyrants among our own people: when the King was tyrant, let him look out. And it has always been the same, and will be the same, whether the tyrant be the Barons, whether the tyrant be the Church, whether he be demagogue or dictator — let them look out.
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley
The Holy Bible is not only great but high explosive literature. It works in strange ways and no living man can tell or know how that book in its journeyings through the world has started an individual soul 10,000 different places into a new life, a new belief, a new conception and a new faith.
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley
The real need of the day is ... moral and spiritual rearmament ... God's Living Spirit can transcend conflicting political systems, can reconcile order and freedom, can rekindle true patriotism, can unite all citizens in the service of the nation, and all nations in the service of mankind.
And, in this case, science could learn an important lesson from the literati — who love contingency for the same basic reason that scientists tend to regard the theme with suspicion. Because, in contingency lies the power of each person, to make a difference in an unconstrained world bristling with possibilities, and nudgeable by the smallest of unpredictable inputs into markedly different channels spelling either vast improvement or potential disaster.
Absurd | Defense | Disagreement | Excellence | Failure | Mediocrity | Model | Reality | Society | Struggle | Teach | Thought | Understanding | Excellence | Society | Failure | Think | Thought |
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
The overbearing matter-of-factness which sacrifices the subject to the ascertainment of the truth, rejects at once truth and objectivity.
Criticism | Man | Means | Organic | Price | Technology | Will |
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
Dialectic thought is an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means.
Criticism | Indispensable | Mind |
The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in this country and at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon others. Successful enterprise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if the conditions are such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of success.
Blame | Conduct | Criticism | Efficiency | Good | Important | Liberty | Means | Nothing | Praise | Public | Right | Service | Truth | Wrong |
To any nation that stands for human liberties, they have an Ally in the United States.
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes be seasonably interposed.
Better | Body | Defense | Land | Nature | Opinion | Service | Thought | Will | Thought |
In our university [of Virginia] you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution.
It takes heroic humility to be yourself.
Action | Criticism | Panic | Preference | World |
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.
Appearance | Defense | Habit | Thinking | Following |
A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
William Blackstone, fully Sir William Blackstone
Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.
Defense |