This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
The nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.
Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten... America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness - justice.
Debt | Determination | Greatness | History | Indispensable | Justice | Ugly | Will | Wisdom |
That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple, to know God's greatness not so much from disorder as from order, not so much from those strange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as from those common ones in which He fulfills His laws.
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man should always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding. If his own prowess fails to compare with theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it.
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities. But if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not in the same manner unite individuals. We see that in countries where the people move only by the spirit of commerce, they make a traffic of all the humane, all the moral virtues; the most trifling things, those which humanity would demand, are there done, or there given, only for money.
Commerce | Humanity | Money | Nations | Peace | People | Spirit | Wisdom | Commerce |
The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answers.
Life | Life | Little | Nations | Proverbs | Time | Wisdom | Learn |
People do not always understand the motives of sublime conduct, and when they are astonished they are very apt to think they ought to be alarmed. The truth is none are fit judges of greatness but those who are capable of it.
Conduct | Greatness | Motives | People | Truth | Wisdom | Think | Understand |
The true grandeur of nations is in those qualities which constitute the true greatness of the individual.
Greatness | Individual | Nations | Qualities | Wisdom |
The costliest thing on earth is the drunkard’s song. It costs ruin of body. It costs ruin of mind...The costliest thing on earth is sin. The most expensive of all music is the Song of the Drunkards. It is the highest tariff of nations - not a protective tariff, but a tariff of doom, a tariff of woe, an tariff of death.
Body | Death | Earth | Mind | Music | Nations | Sin | Wisdom | Woe |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Democratic nations will habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful, and they will require that the beautiful should be useful.
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
A democracy can obtain truth only as the result of experience; and many nations may perish while they are awaiting the consequences of their errors.
Consequences | Democracy | Experience | Nations | Truth | Wisdom |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
Forms become more necessary as the government becomes more active and powerful, and private persons become more indolent and feeble. By their nature, democratic nations stand more in need of forms than other nations, and respect them less.
Government | Nations | Nature | Need | Respect | Wisdom | Government | Respect |