This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Heresy is a word which, when it is used without passion, signifies a private opinion. So the different sects of the old philosophers, Academians, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, &c., were called heresies." - Thomas Hobbes
"I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." - Thomas Jefferson
"Certainly, if we believe that any one moral standard is as good as any other, we are likely to be more tolerant. We shall tolerate widow-burning, human sacrifice, cannibalism, slavery, infliction of physical torture, or any of the thousand and one abominations which are or have been from time to time, approved by one moral code or another. But this is not the kind of toleration we want or would accept." - W. T. Stace, fully Walter Terence Stace
"What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death." - William Blake
"The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for war falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians." - Wilhelm Reich
"Food was his public love, his private lust" - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"In the detective story, as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"Nobody but a Southerner knows the wrenching rinsing sadness of the cities of the North." - Walker Percy
"It is logical to assert that all matter possesses a property which is essentially akin to sensation, the property of reflection." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
"Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"Since, O Mazda, from the beginning, Thou didst create soul and body; mental power and knowledge and since Thou didst place life within the corporeal body and didst bestow to mankind the power to act, speak and guide, you wished that everyone should choose his or her own faith and path freely ." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL
"Liberty in art, liberty in society: behold the double end towards which consistent and logical minds should tend." - Victor Hugo
"As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"Naturally only a few people were capable of reaching great spiritual heights. But a few were given the chance to attain human greatness even through their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would have never achieved. To the others of us, the mediocre and the half-hearted, the words of Bismarck could be applied: Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.” Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
"In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto him: All this power will I give unto thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine. Jesus, as we know, answered and said Get thee behind me, Satan! And he really meant it; he would have nothing to do with worldly glory, with temporal power; he chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death of a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his church followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian gospel. The early Christians had all things in common, except women; they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil. But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed the guise or no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest religion." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
"There would be dreamers of dreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there would be burning bushes and stone tablets on mountain-tops, and inspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands. There would arise special castes of men and women, learned in these sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally emphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves aloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and entitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles in ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking with him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and angels, acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of laws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to distinguish them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to impress their followers, employing all sensuous effects, architecture and sculpture and painting, music and poetry and dancing, candles and incense and bells and gongs." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
"The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting. [Of London]" - V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett
"People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being." - Václav Havel
"This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor." - Václav Havel
"Nero was king by accident in show; but Socrates by nature in good sooth; by right of both Augustus; luck and truth less perfectly were blent in Scipio." - Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella
"Seek truth in meditation, not in moldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pond." - Turkish Proverbs
"Beshrow me but I love her heartily! For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself; And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul. The Merchant of Venice, Act ii, Scene 6" - William Shakespeare
"But that I love the gentle Desdemona, I would not my unhousèd free condition put into circumscription and confine for the sea's worth. Othello, Act I, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare
"Is money to be gathered? Cut down the pleasant trees among the houses, pull down ancient and venerable buildings for the money that a few square yards of London dirt will fetch; blacken rivers, hide the sun and poison the air with smoke and worse, and it's nobody's business to see to it or mend it." - William Morris
"It is not revenge we want for poor people, but happiness indeed, what revenge can be taken for all the thousands of years of the sufferings of the poor" - William Morris
"I have reached far beyond my competence and have probably secured for good a reputation for flamboyant gestures. But the times still crowd me and give me no rest, and I see no way to avoid ambitious synthetic attempts; either we get some kind of grip on the accumulation of thought or we continue to wallow helplessly, to starve amidst plenty. So I gamble with science and write." - Ernest Becker
"Who laughs early will cry later." - Estonian Proverbs
"We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
"Am I my brother's keeper? [That frequently asked question] has never been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"In this country — the most favored beneath the bending skies — we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child — and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…" - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked and clubbed into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regulars, traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested by spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and sold out by leaders, but notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"The guns on the walls that surround the prison accurately, though unwittingly, index the true character of the penitentiary in our day." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"The hand tools of early times are used no more. Mammoth machines have taken their place. A few thousand capitalists own them and many millions of workingmen use them." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
"Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh