This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
When a thief is breaking into a house, he calls on God to help him.
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.
There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches
For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available: either by the absolute indifference of your fellow-men in peace-time, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out.
Absolute | Indifference | Men | Passion | Peace | Time | War | Wisdom | World |
The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey.
Evil | Fraud | Little | Lust | Man | Perfidy | Rage | War | Wisdom |
Carl von Clausewitz, fully Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, also Karl von Clausewitz
If the aim of the military action is an equivalent for the political object, that action will in general diminish as the political object diminishes. The more this object comes to the front, the more will this be so. This explains how, without self-contradiction, there can be wars of all degrees of importance and energy, from a war of extermination down to a mere state of armed observation.
Action | Contradiction | Energy | Object | Observation | Self | War | Will | Wisdom |
Agatha Christie, fully Dame Agatha Miller Christie
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.