This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Government | Government |
A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.
It suffices for us if the moral and physical condition of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government, with a recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he mediates may be irremediable.
Absolute | Eternal | Government | People | Power | Spirit | Truth | Government |
The privilege of giving or withholding moneys is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative which if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shows how efficacious its intercession for redress of grievances and reestablishment of rights, and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator.
Enjoyment | Freedom | Man | Principles |
The most fearful phenomenon of these mid-century years is not the atom bomb; atomic energy does have its constructive possibilities... The most fearful event of these times is the colossal expansion of the government of the United States and the constant increase of executive power within the government.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
There is no race of people in the world that can compete with a senator for talking. If I went to the Senate, I couldn’t talk fast enough to answer roll call.
Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
Choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God.
Monsanto doesn't care about feeding the world. We have to think about the wage slavery of migrant workers and salary slavery of those who are desperately unhappy.
Ability | Diversion | Energy | Heart | Marriage | Nothing | Rights | System | Television | Wife | Will | Work | Negotiation | Understand |
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
The religious definition of truth is not that it is universal but that it is absolute.
Dirty |
W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer
To master anything from football to relativity requires effort. But it does not require unpleasant efforts, drudgery. The main task of any teacher is to make a subject interesting.
Enthusiasm | Ideas | Mathematics | Following |
W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky
The religion of one age is often the poetry of the next. Around every living and operative faith there lies a region of allegory and of imagination into which opinions frequently pass, and in which they long retain a transfigured and idealised existence after their natural life has died away. They are, as it were, deflected. They no longer tell directly and forcibly upon human actions. They no longer produce terror, inspire hopes, awake passions, or mould the characters of men; yet they still exercise a kind of reflex influence, and form part of the ornamental culture of the age. They are turned into allegories. They are interpreted in a non-natural sense. They are invested with a fanciful, poetic, but most attractive garb. They follow instead of controlling the current of thought, and being transformed by far-fetched and ingenious explanations, they become the embellishments of systems of belief that are wholly irreconcilable with their original tendencies. The gods of heathenism were thus translated from the sphere of religion to the sphere of poetry. The grotesque legends and the harsh doctrines of a superstitious faith are so explained away, that they appear graceful myths foreshadowing and illustrating the conceptions of a brighter day. For a time they flicker upon the horizon with a softly beautiful light that enchants the poet, and lends a charm to the new system with which they are made to blend; but at last this too fades away. Religious ideas die like the sun; their last rays, possessing little heat, are expended in creating beauty.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The first step towards the emancipation of the people from this penal servitude is the confiscation of the landed estates, the introduction of workers’ control and the nationalization of the banks. The next steps will be the nationalization of the factories, the compulsory organization of the whole population in consumers’ societies, which are at the same time societies for the sale of products, and the state monopoly of the trade in grain and other necessities.
Democracy | Individuality | Revolution | Will |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.