This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in battle." - Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL
"To be nobody-but-myself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting." - e. e. cummings, fully Edward Estlin Cummings
"The moral and spiritual forces of our country do not lose ground in the hours we are busy on our jobs; their battle is the leisure time. We are organizing the production of leisure. We need better organization of its consumption." - Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphans - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." - Abraham Lincoln
"It is with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace... Even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him!" - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong - but time and chance happen to them all." - Bible or The Bible or Holy Bible NULL
"To bring one's self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything is easy." - Thomas A. Buckner
"Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is started, all that is within you will come to your assistance." - Robert Collier
"If a child who wanted to be a teacher I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives not less because they may live to see some faction of the battle won." - James Hilton
"Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle and we knew that victory for mankind depended upon our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world." - Joseph Parker
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won." - Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, sometimes called "The Iron Duke"
"To administer medicine to diseases which have already developed and thereby suppress bodily chaos which has already occurred is comparable to the behavior of those who would begin to dig a well after they have grown thirsty, or those who would begin to cast weapons after they have engaged in battle." - Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine NULL
"This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live." - Omar Bradley, fully Omar Nelson Bradley
"Truett’s Rules: (1) It’s better to demonstrate than to dictate. If you set the example, you won’t need to set so many rules. (2) Fifty percent of the battle ends when you make up your mind." - S. Truett Cathy
"The only devils in the world are those running in their own hearts. That is where the battle should be fought." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"To lose patience is to lose the battle." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"He who has no prayer free from his thoughts has no weapon for battle. By prayer I mean the prayer which is constantly active in the innermost secret places of the soul." - Hesychius of Jerusalem NULL
"A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader." - Golda Meir, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson
"When the anonymous masses enter history, it is chiefly to be slaughtered in battle, to die of famine or privation – to illustrate the failures of their betters… We have the mighty pyramids, but no firsthand account of the feelings of the wretches who built them." - Herbert J. Muller
"What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one. When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian. What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has come to me hungry and unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my people and my country?" - Sitting Bull, aka Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, born Hoka Psice NULL
"Be kind; every man you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Ian Maclaren, pseudonymn of Rev. John Watson
"By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice." - Alan Curtis Kay
"Defense of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change." - Alfred North Whitehead
"All married couples should learn the art of battle as the should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership." - Ann Landers, pen name created by Chicago Sun-Times advice columnist Ruth Crowley in 1943 and taken over by Eppie Lederer in 1955
"Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle." - Annie Besant
"Never forget that life can be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle." - Annie Besant
"If there is no ego who can feel anger or desire, resentment or frustration? This means that enquiry is not merely a cold investigation but a battle; every path is, in every religion." - Arthur W Osborn
"Thou art/ - I am? - why argue? - Being is. Keep still and be. Death will not still the mind. Nor argument, nor hopes of after-death. This world the battle-ground, yourself the foe yourself must master. Eager the mind to seek. Yet oft astray, causing its own distress then crying for relief, as though some God barred from it jealously the Bliss it sought but would not face. Till in the end, all battles fought, all earthly loves abjured, dawn in the East, there is no other way but to be still. In stillness then to find the giants all were windmills, all the strife self-made, unreal; even he that strove a fancied being, as when that good knight woke from delirium and with a loud cry rendered his soul to God. Mind, then, or soul? Break free from subtle words. Only be still, lay down the mid, submit, and Being then is Bliss, Bliss Consciousness: and That you are." - Arthur W Osborn
"Do not let the hero in our soul perish, in the lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it impossible, it's yours." - Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
"Never battle with a man who has nothing to lose, for then the conflict is unequal." - Baltasar Gracián
"An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood: a mud bath for every soul concerned in it." - George Bernard Shaw
"In the cause of freedom, we have to battle for the rights of people with whom we do not agree; and whom, in many cases, we may not like. These people test the strength of the freedoms which protect all of us. If we do not defend their rights, we endanger our own." - Harry S. Truman
"The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office. There is little time for leaders to reflect. They are locked in an endless battle in which the urgent constantly gains on the important. The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the pressure of circumstance." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life or in physical contests." - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The soul may be compared to a field of battle, where the armies are ready every moment to encounter. Not a single vice but has a more powerful opponent, and not one virtue but may be overborne by a combination of vices." - Oliver Goldsmith
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato NULL
"It is impossible to win the race unless you venture to run, impossible to win the victory unless you dare to battle." - Richard M. DeVos, Sr.
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of the rest or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance... Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world that yields most painfully to change." - Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is one essential vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change." - Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
"As in labor, the more one doth exercise, the more one is enabled to do, strength growing upon work; so, with the use of suffering, men’s minds get the habit of suffering, and all fears and terrors are to them but as a summons to battle, whereof they know beforehand they shall come off victorious." - Philip Sidney, fully Sir Philip Sidney
"What is Philosophy but a continual battle against Custom?" - Thomas Carlyle
"The true warrior is always the last to pick up the lance or go to battle. His battles are fought with the lance of love and understanding. His enemies are prejudice, greed, and bad medicine, and the biggest battles are always fought within himself. So, do not go out upon the earth to battle unseen demons of the physical world, for your hatred will be like theirs. Instead, go out as a true warrior, with love and understanding." - Tom Brown, Jr.