This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Knowledge of mankind is knowledge of their passions.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Boredom is ... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
To eternity itself there is no other handle than the present moment. Let any man examine his thoughts and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so. All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.
Eternity | Future | Happy | Hope | Inevitable | Knowing | Light | Man | Mankind | Means | Object | Past | Present | Will | Think |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
To much liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
Liberty |
Who are they that would have all mankind look backward instead of forward, and regulate their conduct by things that have been done? Those who are most ignorant as to all things that are doing. Bacon said, time is the greatest of innovators; he might also have said the greatest of improvers.
In the age of acorns, a single barleycorn had been of more value to mankind than all the diamonds in the mines of India.
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Chance | Earth | Law | Liberty | Man | Men | Mother | Peace | People | Rights | Spirit | Wants |
Dante, full name Durante degli Alighieri, aka Dante Alighieri NULL
World government is necessary for the world... World government must be understood in the sense that it governs mankind on the basis of what all have in common and that by a common law it leads all toward peace.
Government | Law | Mankind | Peace | Sense | World | Government |
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable.
The first accounts we have of mankind are but accounts of their butcheries. All empires have been cemented in blood.
Mankind |
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
War is no longer a lively adventure or expedition into romance, matching man against man in the test of the stout-hearted. Instead, it is aimed against the cities mankind has built. Its goal is their total destruction and devastation.
The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.
Of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as [the] tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion.
There is no true liberty for the individual except as he finds it in the liberty of all.
Individual | Liberty |