This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.
Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd
I am very pleased with the court's decision, which I believe to be a great victory for the American people and our Constitution,
People |
Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn
This is the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D–day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the side with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island.It is not easy to do so,” He continued. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their place. Indeed some of us are alive and breathing at this very monent only because men who lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of men such as these is not easy . . . No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our Division who are not here have already done. All we can even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace as they did in war. To swear by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours will never suffer these pains again. These men have done their job well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. . . . “We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich men and poor--- together . . . . Theirs is the highest and purest democracy. Any man among us, the living, who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother . . . . makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates an empty, hollow mockery. To one thing more do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America’s fighting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of Democracy at home. This war with all its frightful heartache and suffering, is but the beginning of our generations struggle for democracy . . . . Thus do we memorialize those who, have ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle they began. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: This shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come—we promise – the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.
Beginning | Birth | Ceremony | Courage | Democracy | Earth | Fighting | Freedom | God | Guarantee | Hate | Hope | Man | Memory | Men | Mourn | Nothing | Pain | Peace | Power | Price | Sacrifice | Sorrow | Speech | Strength | Struggle | War | Will | God | Blessed | Friends | Understand |
Essentially Americanism, which in democracy, is a moraland spiritual adventure, concerned primarily with a sound and workable philosophy of life, summed up in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, respect for human personality, and recognition of the dignity and value of the individual. In his brilliant statement on The Coming Victory of Democracy, Thomas Mann tells us he believes in democracy because he believes in freedom, and he believes in freedom because he believes in human nature and the dignity of man, who is more than a depersonalized unit in the state. Man is a spiritual being whom it is the duty of the state to serve. He is more than a slave to be kept in order and submission by the crack of a master's whip. "The essential man," says he, "is not the creature who hurls down bombs on children, but the mind that devised the flying machine, the seeker and builder, not the destroyer."
Brotherhood | Democracy | Dignity | Duty | Freedom | God | Human nature | Man | Mind | Nature | Order | Philosophy | Respect | Sound | Submission | Respect | God | Value |
Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"
The masses are in reality their own leaders, dialectically creating their own development process.
Future | Pride | Revolution | Strength | Tomorrow | Will | Leadership |
Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"
The modern proletarian class doesn’t carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight… That’s exactly what is laudable about it, that’s exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers’ movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation.
Revolution | Will |
Saki, pen name for Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro NULL
Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.
Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL
It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.
Defeat |
Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.
When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes.
Change | Government | Mind | Surrender | Government |
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
The continuation of authority has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.
It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves.
The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
I swear before you; I swear on the God of my parents; I swear on them; I swear on my honor and I swear on my country that I shall not give rest to my arm nor respite to my soul until I have broken the chains that oppress us by the will of the Spanish power.
Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
I'm never afraid. But in my case it's nothing to be proud of.
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?
Defeat | Understand |
Pope Leo I, aka Pope Leo The Great, Pope Saint Leo I NULL
Word in our flesh, Wisdom in infancy, Power in weakness, and in true Man, the Lord of Majesty.