This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What causes war is not patriotism, not that human beings are willing to die in defense of their dearest ones. It is the false doctrine, fostered by the few, that war spells gain.
Defense | Doctrine | Patriotism | War | Wisdom |
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.
Control | Freedom of speech | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Liberty | Man | Public | Right | Speech | Thought | Wisdom |
Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Indignation boils my blood at the thought of the heritage we are throwing away; at the thought that, with few exceptions, the fight for freedom is left to the poor, forlorn and defenseless, and to the few radicals and revolutionaries who would make use of liberty to destroy, rather than to maintain, American institutions.
Destroy | Freedom | Indignation | Liberty | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
Although music appeals simply to the emotions, and represents no definite images in itself, we are justified in using any language which may serve to convey to others our musical expressions. Words will often pave the way for the more subtle operations of music, and unlock the treasures which sound alone an rifle, and hence the eternal popularity of song.
Emotions | Eternal | Language | Music | Popularity | Sound | Will | Wisdom | Words |
The poet should size the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, pen name Amanda Cross
Marriage today must... be concerned not with the inviolable commitment of constancy and unending passion, but with the changing patterns of liberty and discovery.
Commitment | Constancy | Discovery | Liberty | Marriage | Passion | Wisdom |
The bravest and best men of all times have perished in the struggles against tyranny and despotism, and free government has never secured even a feeble existence save at a most fearful cost. The experiment of republican government in our own country is similar to that of all others. Here, however, liberty has won her grandest triumphs. Here freedom is enthroned securely and is the unchallenged boon of every inhabitant. But we contemplate the cost of victory with mournful and pitying hearts.
Cost | Existence | Experiment | Freedom | Government | Liberty | Men | Tyranny | Wisdom | Government |
S. G. Goodrich, fully Samuel Griswold Goodrich, pen name Peter Praley
Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. It springs from a consciousness of virtue, and renders a man, in the pursuit of defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition, or contempt.
Consciousness | Contempt | Courage | Defense | Fear | Man | Opposition | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Philip G. Hamerton, fully Philip Gilbert Hamerton
Of all intellectual friendships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist between old and ripe men and their younger brethren in science or literature or art. It is by; these private friendships, even more than by public performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is perpetuated from age to age.
Age | Art | Literature | Men | Public | Science | Sound | Thinking | Tradition | Wisdom | Old |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble while our hearts are so proud.