This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely to be met with in seasons of calm and unruffled prosperity.—It flourishes in adversity, kindles in the hour of danger, and awakens to deeds of renown.—The terrors of persecution only serve to quicken the energy of its purposes.—It swells in proud integrity, and, great in the purity of its cause, it can scatter defiance amidst hosts of enemies.
Character | Deeds | Defiance | Energy | Enthusiasm | Prosperity | Purity | Virtue | Virtue | Deeds |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
Character | Commitment | Oppression |
Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
I never saw, heard nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'
Argument | Belief | Education | Faith | Force | Reason | Will | Think |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
The persecution of genius fosters its influence.
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guides of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Piety |
We have two tyrannous physical passions: concupiscence and chastity. We become mad in pursuit of sex: we become equally mad in the persecution of that pursuit. Unless we gratify our desire the race is lost; unless we restrain it we destroy ourselves.
A religion which requires persecution to sustain it is of the devil's propagation.
The real advantage which truth has consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favorable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such a head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
Circumstances | Opinion | Time | Truth | Will |
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
Experience | Men | Truth |
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
Bigotry | Conscience | Giving | Good | Government | Indulgence | Liberty | Mankind | People | Policy | Right | Toleration | Government |
Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.
Government | Public | Government |
Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
Circumstances | Opinion | Time | Truth | Will |
Religious rights, and religious liberty, are things of inestimable value. For these have many of our ancestors suffered and died; and shall we, in the sunshine of prosperity, desert that glorious cause, from which no storms of adversity or persecution could make them swerve? Let us consider if as a duty of the first rank with respect to moral obligation, to transmit to our posterity, and provide, as far as we can, for transmitting, unimpaired, to the latest generations, that generous zeal for religion and liberty, which makes the memory of our forefathers so truly illustrious.
Adversity | Duty | Memory | Rank | Religion | Respect | Zeal | Respect |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Age after age, history repeats itself when men and women, in their ignorance, limitations and pride, sit in judgment over the God-incarnated man who declares his Godhood, and condemn him for uttering the Truths they cannot understand. He is indifferent to abuse and persecution for, in his true compassion he understands, in his continual experience of Reality he knows, and in his infinite mercy he forgives.
Abuse | Compassion | Experience | History | Judgment | Man | Men | Mercy | Reality | Truths |
Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL
Equal diligence and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for Holy Orders. For, far from the clergy be the love of novelty! God hateth the proud and obstinate mind.
Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL
The very idea of some danger, the very thought that the moral corruption so prevalent and pervading in the Roman world threatened to creep into the morals and customs of the clergy caused him no end of trembling and fear....He could be seen warning, correcting and suspending from their functions those unworthy members of the clergy....Thus do we see, Venerable Brethren, how important it is for a bishop, before laying hands on new candidates for ordination, to apply himself, in God's presence, to a deep and thorough self-examination.
Corruption | Important | Thought | World | Thought |