This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
These are the times that try men's souls. The Summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its things; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Consolation | Esteem | Freedom | Heaven | Hell | Love | Man | Men | Price | Service | Tyranny | Will | Wisdom | Woman |
He who is held in bondage by his senses can never enjoy even a dream of freedom. It is only by complete escape from them that we arrive at a state of freedom from fear.
Fear | Freedom from fear | Freedom | Wisdom |
Privacy is absolutely essential to maintaining a free society. The idea that is at the foundation of the notion of privacy is that the citizen is not the tool or the instrument of government - but the reverse... If you have no privacy, it will tend to follow that you have no political freedom, no religious freedom, no freedom of families to make their own decisions [regarding having children]. All these freedoms tend to reinforce on another.
Children | Freedom | Government | Society | Will | Wisdom | Government |
Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly
Supporting the Equal Rights Amendment is like trying to kill a fly with a sledge hammer. You don’t kill the fly, but you end up breaking the furniture... We cannot reduce women to equality. Equality is a step down for most women.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
One of the principal ingredients in the happiness of childhood is freedom from suspicion - why may it not be combined with a more extensive intercourse with mankind? A disposition to dwell on the bright side of character is like gold to its possessor; but to imagine more evil than meets the eye, betrays affinity for it.
Character | Childhood | Evil | Freedom | Gold | Mankind | Suspicion | Wisdom | Happiness |
Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar
Liberation is freedom from confusion.
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow man.
Bible | Dignity | Doctrine | Equality | Faith | God | Individual | Man | Religion | Responsibility | Revelation | Wisdom | Bible |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Democratic institutions awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy.
Abraham J. Twerski, fully Abraham Joshua Twerski
What is freedom if not the possibility of change?
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but the greater well-being of all that is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is His eye, advancement; what afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive, then, to raise myself to this point of the divine contemplation and thence to view and judge the concerns of men.
Beauty | Contemplation | Equality | Greatness | Justice | Man | Men | Prosperity | Wisdom | Contemplation |
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 |