This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If treasury bills are emitted on a tax appropriated for their redemption in fifteen years, and (to insure preference in the first moments of competition) bearing an interest of six per cent, there is no one who would not take them in preference to the bank paper now afloat, on a principle of patriotism as well as interest; and they would be withdrawn from circulation into private hoards to a considerable amount. Their credit once established, others might be emitted, bottomed also on a tax, but not bearing interest; and if ever their credit faltered, open public loans, on which these bills alone should be received as specie. These, operating as a sinking fund, would reduce the quantity in circulation, so as to maintain that in an equilibrium with specie. It is not easy to estimate the obstacles which, in the beginning, we should encounter in ousting the banks from their possession of the circulation; but a steady and judicious alternation of emissions and loans would reduce them in time.
Here is an error into which most of the speculators on government have fallen, and which the well-known state of society of our Indians ought, before now, to have corrected. In their hypothesis of the origin of government, they suppose it to have commenced in the patriarchal or monarchical form. Our Indians are evidently in that state of nature which has passed the association of a single family... The Cherokees, the only tribe I know to be contemplating the establishment of regular laws, magistrates, and government, propose a government of representatives, elected from every town. But of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man.
Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it as earned.
The firmness with which the people have withstood the late abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false, and to form a correct judgment between them.
Character | Death | Good | Law | Mercy | Murder | Object | Power | Public | Security | Time | Treason | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Murder |
Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived have forced me to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy.
There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.
They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.
Art | Enlightenment | Intolerance | Literature | Mankind | Passion | Reason | Rhetoric | Service | Slander | Virtue | Virtue | Slander | Art | Intellect |
I believe the defenders of intelligent design deserve our gratitude for challenging a scientific world view that owes some of the passion displayed by its adherents precisely to the fact that it is thought to liberate us from religion. That world view is ripe for displacement....
They boldly will usurp Moses chair, without any study or preparation. They would have their mouths reverenced as the mouths of the Sybils, who spoke nothing but was registered; yet nothing comes from their mouths but gross, full-stomached tautology. They sweat, they blunder, they bounce and plunge in the pulpit, but all is voice and no substance; they deaf men's ears, but not edify. Scripture peradventure they come off thick and threefold with, but it is so ugly daubed, plastered and patched on, so peevishly specked and applied, as if a botcher with a number of satin and velvet shreds should clout and mend leather doublets and cloth breeches.