This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.
Corruption | Fear | Freedom | Ignorance | Little | Relationship | Society | Truth | Wonder | Society |
It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.
Corruption | Destroy | Deviation | Fear | Freedom | Ignorance | Little | Power | Relationship | Right | Sense | Society | Truth | Wonder | Wrong | Society |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
The modern man is . . . certain about his essential virtue . . . [and since] he does not see that he has a freedom of spirit which transcends both nature and reason . . . [he] is unable to understand the real pathos of his defiance of nature's and reason's laws. He always imagines himself betrayed into this defiance either by some accidental corruption in his past history or by some sloth of reason. Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education.
Corruption | Defiance | Freedom | History | Man | Nature | Past | Reason | Sloth | Spirit | Virtue | Virtue | Understand |
The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination.
Corruption | Eternal | Position | World |
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
This administration has proved that it is utterly incapable of cleaning out the corruption which has completely eroded it and reestablishing the confidence and faith of the American people in the morality and honesty of their government employees.
Administration | Confidence | Corruption | Faith | Government | Honesty | Morality | People | Government |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
O my God, If my iniquity is too great to be borne, What wilt Thou do for Thy great name’s sake? And if I do not wait on Thy mercies, Who will have pity on me but Thee? Therefore though Thou shouldst slay me, yet will I trust in Thee. For if Thou shouldst pursue my iniquity, I will flee from Thee to Thyself, And I will shelter myself from Thy wrath in Thy shadow, And to the skirts of Thy mercies I will lay hold until Thou hast had mercy on me, And I will not let Thee go till Thou hast blessed me. Remember, I pray Thee, that of slime Thou hast made me, And by all these hardships tried me, Therefore visit me not according to my wanton dealings, Nor feed me on the fruit of my deeds, But prolong Thy patience, nor bring near my day, Until I shall have prepared provision for returning to my eternal home, Nor rage against me to send me hastily from the earth, With my sins bound up in the kneading-trough on my shoulder. And when Thou placest my sins in the balance Place Thou in the other scale my sorrows, And while recalling my depravity and frowardness, Remember my affliction and my harrying, And place these against the others. And remember, I pray Thee, O my God, That Thou hast driven me rolling and wandering like Cain, And in the furnace of exile hast tried me, And from the mass of my wickedness refined me, And I know ’tis for my good Thou hast proved me, And in faithfulness afflicted me, And that it is to profit me at my latter end That Thou hast brought me through this testing by troubles. Therefore, O God, let Thy mercies be moved toward me, And do not exhaust Thy wrath upon me, Nor reward me according to my works, But cry to the Destroying Angel: Enough! For what height or advantage have I attained That Thou shouldst pursue me for my iniquity, And shouldst post a watch over me, And trap me like an antelope in a snare? Is not the bulk of my days past and vanished? Shall the rest consume in their iniquity? And if I am here to-day before Thee, "To-morrow Thine eyes are upon me and I am not." "And now wherefore should I die And this Thy great fire devour me?" O my God, turn Thine eyes favourably upon me For the remainder of my brief days, Pursue not their escaping survivors, Nor let the remnant of the crops that the hail hath spared Be finished off by the locust for my sins. For am I not the creation of Thy hands, And what shall it avail Thee That the worm shall take me for its meal And feed on the product of Thy hands?
Anger | Birth | Childhood | Corruption | Day | Death | Gall | Glory | God | Good | Life | Life | Lord | Lust | Man | Pain | Power | Rule | Sorrow | Spirit | Time | War | Will | Work | World | Youth | Youth | God |
There is this value in books that they enable us to converse with the dead. There is something in this beyond the mere intrinsic worth of what they have left
The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it.
Body | Corruption | Death | Mortal |
We trust and believe in what we love.
Corruption | Cruelty | Peace | Will | Cruelty |
Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.
Corruption | Law | Nature |
Virtue and true goodness, righteousness and equity, are things truly noble and excellent, lovely and venerable in themselves.
Corruption | Mankind | Revelation |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit. Very few carry their philosophy to places of diversion, or are very careful to analyze their enjoyments. The general condition of life is so full of misery, that we are glad to catch delight without inquiring whence it comes, or by what power it is bestowed.
Body | Corruption | Idleness | People | Prosperity | Public | Society | Society |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, the last corruption of degenerate man.
Corruption | Gold | Lust | Rage |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.
Corruption | Lust |
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
March swiftly to revenge the dead, to give life to the dying, to free the oppressed, and to give liberty to all.
Authority | Corruption | Education | Judgment | Power | Public |
Robert Bellarmine, fully Saint Robert Bellarmine
Political rule is so natural and necessary to the human race that it cannot be withdrawn without destroying nature itself; for the nature of man is such that he is a social animal.
Corruption | Defects | God | Government | Human nature | Nature | System | Government | God |
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.
Confidence | Control | Corruption | Law | People | Will |
By this (the work of the Spirit in our prayers) view he strikes us with holy dread and awe of the majesty of God, whereby is banished that lightness and vanity of heart, that makes such flaunting in the prayers of some.
Appearance | Body | Corruption | Courage | Eternal | Life | Life | Little | Lord | Will | World | Old |