This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them.
Excellence | Excellence |
Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.
Evil must never be fought with rage or hatred, for that will only make it stronger. You must never fear the evil ones, for your fear will consume and destroy you. Instead, fight the evil spirits with love and compassion, for those are our greatest weapons.
Compassion | Destroy | Evil | Fear | Love | Rage | Weapons | Will |
D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence
The Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once again slaves.
David J. Schwartz, fully David Joseph Schwartz
To fight fear, act. To increase fear...wait, put off postpone.
Fear |
Etty Hillesum, formally Ester "Etty" Hillesum
We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
Erwin Rommel, fully Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel
Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.
Battle |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of instincts. He has to have a frame of orientation which permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind.
Action | Danger | Life | Life | Nature | Principles | World | Danger |
The policy of excessive protectionism is like a habit-forming drug. Nations once indulging in it go on from excess to excess; and the appetite increases. But the end of unrestrained indulgence is disaster. Economic nationalism and protectionism spell disaster for the world as well as for the nation...Men will fight before they starve. Uneconomic trade barriers forge the thunderbolts of war.
Appetite | Excess | Indulgence | Nations | Policy | Will | World |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretense to it; but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.
George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases.
Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper.
H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
They may fight against greatness in us who are the children of men, but can they conquer? Even if they should destroy us every one, what then? Would it save them? No! For greatness is abroad, not only in us, not only in the Food, but in the purpose of all things! It is in the nature of all things, it is part of space and time. To grow and still to grow, from first to last that is Being, that is the law of life. What other law can there be?
Children | Destroy | Greatness | Law | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Space |
Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr
We must fight their falsehood with our truth, but we must also fight the falsehood in our truth