This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger
The individual freedoms destroyed by the increase in national authority have been in the main the freedom to deny black Americans their elementary rights as citizens, the freedom to work little children in mills... the freedom to pay starvation wages... the freedom to... pollute the environment - all freedoms that, one supposes, a civilized country can readily do without
Authority | Children | Freedom | Individual | Little | Rights | Work |
Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
From childhood upwards, everything is done to make the minds of men and women conventional and sterile. And if, by misadventure, some spark of imagination remains, its unfortunate possessor is considered unsound and dangerous, worthy only of contempt in time of peace and of prison or a traitor’s death in time of war.
Childhood | Contempt | Death | Imagination | Men | Peace | Prison | Time | Traitor | War |
The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
Public | Punishment |
Seek not proud wealth; but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contently, yet have not any abstract or friarly contempt of it.
Frank Lloyd Wright, born Frank Lincoln Wright
The insolence of authority is endeavoring to substitute money for ideas.
Nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power pressed too far, and relaxed too much.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
Every great example takes hold of us with the authority of a miracle, and says to us, "If ye had but faith, ye, also, could do the same things."
Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth that humble reasoning of a single individual.
Authority | Individual | Science | Worth |
Two protecting deities, indeed, like two sober friends supporting a drunkard, flank human folly and keep it within bounds. One of these deities is Punishment and the other Agreement.
Folly | Punishment | Friends |
Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies in dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
There is a principle that is guaranteed to keep man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation.