This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Nothing will raise the revolutionary energy of the world proletariat so much, nothing will shorten the path leading to its complete victory to such an extent, as this decisive victory of the revolution that has now started in Russia.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Once we accept the point of view that human knowledge develops from ignorance, we shall find millions of examples of it just as simple as the discovery of alizarin in coal tar, millions of observations not only in the history of science and technology but in the everyday life of each and every one of us that illustrate the transformation of “things-in-themselves” into “things-for-us.”
Aims | Method | Proletariat | Revolution | Struggle |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The passing of state power from one class to another is the first, the principal, the basic sign of a revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical political meaning of that term. To this extent, the bourgeois, or the bourgeois-democratic, revolution in Russia is completed.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may possess, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The entire trend of development is towards abolition of coercive domination of one part of society over another.
Democracy | Freedom | Organization | Proletariat | Purpose | Purpose | Time |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defensism, only on condition: (a) that the power pass to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat; (b) that all annexations be renounced in deed and not in word; (c) that a complete break be effected in actual fact with all capitalist interests.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Socialists cannot achieve their great aim without fighting against all oppression of nations.
Play |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The state is a machine for the oppression layer by other machine intended to be subject to other layers layer adapted other.
Rule |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles (do not forget the immense wealth of some monasteries and lauras). Without this fund any government work in general, any economic build-up in particular, and any upholding of soviet principles in Genoa especially is completely unthinkable. In order to get our hands on this fund of several hundred million gold rubles (and perhaps even several hundred billion), we must do whatever is necessary. But to do this successfully is possible only now. All considerations indicate that later on we will fail to do this, for no other time, besides that of desperate famine, will give us such a mood among the general mass of peasants that would ensure us the sympathy of this group, or, at least, would ensure us the neutralization of this group in the sense that victory in the struggle for the removal of church property unquestionably and completely will be on our side. One clever writer on statecraft correctly said that if it is necessary for the realization of a well-known political goal to perform a series of brutal actions then it is necessary to do them in the most energetic manner and in the shortest time, because masses of people will not tolerate the protracted use of brutality. … Now victory over the reactionary clergy is assured us completely. In addition, it will be more difficult for the major part of our foreign adversaries among the Russian emigres abroad, i.e., the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Milyukovites, to fight against us if we, precisely at this time, precisely in connection with the famine, suppress the reactionary clergy with utmost haste and ruthlessness. Therefore, I come to the indisputable conclusion that we must precisely now smash the Black Hundreds clergy most decisively and ruthlessly and put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades.… The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie that we succeed in shooting on this occasion, the better because this "audience" must precisely now be taught a lesson in such a way that they will not dare to think about any resistance whatsoever for several decades.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
When we are victorious on a world scale I think we shall use gold for the purpose of building public lavatories in the streets of some of the largest cities of the world.
Change | Difficulty | Position | Revolution | Time | Old |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Art | Government | Money | Government | Art |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
Ability | Accident | Day | Growth | Life | Life | Meaning | Power | Psychology | Television | Time | Will |
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces. I am not a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and vermin and foul air, like any other man of refinement; also, I freely admit, when I see a line of a hundred policeman with drawn revolvers flung across a street to keep anyone from coming onto private property to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat disturbed in my nerves. But I have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice. I intend to do my duty to my country.
Defects | Defense | Force | Ideals | Language | Question | Slavery | Spirit | Study | War | Friends |
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
The remedy for the Great Depression is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others… the American way.
Despise | Good | Meaning | Pious | Question | Sense | Society | Wealth | Will | Society | Old | Understand |
V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success; others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity, it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.
Appearance | Giving | Piety | Public | Old |
There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions.
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
I think [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie. I think that, looking back, I now certainly feel I understand more what the war was about... We needed to go over there basically, and take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world, and burst that bubble… And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going from house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying: which part of this sentence do you understand?
Better | Existence | Future | Government | Majority | People | Poverty | Statistics | World | Government | Think |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The question is, what is saving?
Appearance | Labor | Paradox | Price |