This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Democracy | Government | Time | Government |
Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Silence is argument carried out by other means.
Mario Vargas Llosa, fully Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa
No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible.
If you want to find out how well you are living up to your spiritual values and higher principles, pay close attention to how you behave in the middle of an argument or a tense moment involving someone you live with, work with, or are in love with.
Argument | Attention | Love | Principles | Work |
How are we to bring children to the spirit of citizenship and humanity which is postulated by democratic societies? By the actual practice of democracy at school. It is unbelievable that at a time when democratic ideas enter into every phase of life, they should have been so little utilized as instruments of education.
Children | Citizenship | Democracy | Education | Humanity | Ideas | Life | Life | Little | Practice | Spirit | Time |
Most religions are absolutist. Claims to revelation militate against rational argument and compromise. In this sense all religions contain totalitarian possibilities; for totalitarianism, which welds the state into a single body “knit together as one man” is really the religious impulse, the worship of leadership and ideology, the cult of Person or Book, directed towards secular ends.
Argument | Body | Cult | Ends | Impulse | Man | Revelation | Sense | Worship | Leadership |
Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL
It is easy to be honest enough not to be hanged. To be really honest means to subdue one’s prepossessions, ideals - stating things fairly, not humoring your argument - doing justice to your enemies... making confession whether you can afford it or not; refusing unmerited praise; looking painful truths in the face.
Argument | Enough | Ideals | Justice | Means | Praise | Truths |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
National leaders who find themselves wilting under the withering criticisms by members of the media, would do well not to take such criticism personally but to regard the media as their allies in keeping the government clean and honest, its services efficient and timely, and its commitment to democracy strong and unwavering.
Commitment | Criticism | Democracy | Government | Regard | Government |
Al Gore, Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr.,
What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our national distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations.
Commitment | Democracy | Devotion | Distrust | Evil | Good | History | Law | Nations | Openness | People | Power | Rule | System |
Americans often pride themselves on being members of the largest, most enduring, and most successful democracy in the world. Yet their lives, to a great degree, are channeled, shaped, and determined by the decisions of a very few people sitting in the board rooms and executive suites of the giant corporations, over whom they exercise little control.
It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.
Conversation | Thought | Learn |