This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Places not only are they happen. (And it is because they happen that they lend themselves so well to narration, whether as history or story)
History |
Edward R. Murrow, born Egbert Roscoe Murrow
Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
History |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the very same time the beginning of his freedom and development of his reason.
Beginning | Disobedience | Freedom | History | Time |
Such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide. It is clear that the use of such a weapon cannot be justified on any ethical ground which gives a human being a certain individuality and dignity even if he happens to be a resident of an enemy country... The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light.
Danger | Dignity | Enemy | Evil | Existence | Humanity | Individuality | Knowledge | Nature | Danger |
In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.
The world is a scene changing so rapidly that it takes every bit of intuitive ability you have, every brain cell each one of you has, to make the sensible decision about what to do next. You cannot rely upon what you have been taught. All you have learned from history is old ways of making mistakes. There is nothing that history can tell you about what we must do tomorrow. Only what we must not do.
Edward R. Murrow, born Egbert Roscoe Murrow
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.
Erwin Rommel, fully Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel
Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
For the first time in history the physical survival of the human race depends on a radical change of the human heart.
Erwin Rommel, fully Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel
But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.
Courage |
One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority in history is not likely to be insensible to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution... But as judges we are neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic.
History |
The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.
The words of the Constitution ... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.
History | Individual | Justice | Meaning | Reading | Tradition | Words |
The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.
Franz Boas, fully Franz Uri Boas
Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers.