This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison I am not free.
It is not true that the relations between the sexes are of the same order with the rest of man’s instincts. They have social consequences which place them in a class apart.
Consequences | Man | Order | Rest |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
Judge me by the enemies I’ve made.
It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy, you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet juices.
Fear | Love | Man | Men | Revolution | Trust | Work | Worry |
Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds, who sow religious and class dissensions. those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly. Those who demand special favors against the interest of the commonwealth. Those who regard public office as a source of private gain. Those who exalt the military over the civil. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war.
Democracy | Freedom of speech | Freedom | Justice | Law | Majority | Mockery | Office | Public | Regard | Rule | Speech | Trials | War | World |
What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight - the hour of love - the hour of adoration - the hour of rest - when we think of those we love, only to regret that we have not loved them more dearly; when we remember our enemies only to forgive them.
Heart | Influence | Love | Regret | Rest | Forgive | Think |
There is no conflict between the Old and the New; the conflict is between the False and the True.
Old |
Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid.
Indira Gandhi, fully Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī
Opposition comes not only from your enemies but sometimes from your friends, and the latter is much more difficult to face. You have to have physical courage, because very often going along the path of your choice is full of physical handicap hardship.
Choice | Courage | Opposition |
Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own.
Forgiveness | Power | Time | Forgiveness | Forgive |
When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.
Circumstances | Men |
The convictions of the mass of mankind run hand in hand with their interests or with their class feelings.
Convictions | Feelings | Mankind |
One of the greatest dangers... of democracy, as of all other forms of government, lies in the sinister interest of the holders of power: it is the danger of class legislation; of government intended for (whether really effecting it or not) the immediate benefit of the dominant class, to the lasting detriment of the whole. And one of the most important questions demanding consideration, in determining the best constitution of a representative government, is how to provide efficacious securities against this evil.
Consideration | Danger | Democracy | Evil | Government | Important | Power | Government | Danger |
Accumulation of wealth at one pole is... at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.