This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I'm tired of hearing sin called sickness and alcoholism a disease. It is the only disease I know of that we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to spread.
Question |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Awareness of dying slander their lives.
Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella
So that the wise men were obliged to rule themselves like lunatics to shun grim death, seeing the biggest maniac now was king.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Passions have taught men passion.
Opinion |
He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by that very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. - He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness, and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The greatest talents have been frequently misapplied and have produced evil proportionate to the extent of their powers. Both reason and revelation seem to assure us that such minds will be condemned to eternal death, but while on earth, these vicious instruments performed their part in the great mass of impressions, by the disgust and abhorrence which they excited.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.
Credit | Government | Growth | Opinion | System | Government |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The great question is whether man shall start forwards with accelerated velocity towards illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
A man is the part he plays among his fellows. He is not isolated; he cannot be. His life is made up of the relations he bears to others - is made or marred by those relations, guided by them, judged by them, expressed in them. There is nothing else upon which he can spend his spirit - nothing else that we can see. It is by these he gets his spiritual growth; it is by these we see his character revealed, his purpose, his gifts. A few (men) act as those who have mastered the secrets of a serious art, with deliberate subordination of themselves to the great end and motive of the play. These have "found themselves," and have all the ease of a perfect adjustment.
Government | Little | Opinion | Government |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
The simple definition of globalization is the interweaving of markets, technology, information systems, and telecommunications networks in a way that is shrinking the world from a size medium to a size small. It began decades ago, but accelerated dramatically over the past 10 years, as the price of computing power fell and the world became an ever-more densely interconnected place. People resist this shift — see, for example, the G8 protests of 2001 (one of the bloodiest uprisings in recent European history) or the recent rioting in Pittsburgh at this year’s G20 conference—because they think it primarily benefits big business elites to the detriment of everyone else. But globalization didn’t ruin the world—it just flattened it. And on balance that can benefit everyone, especially the poor. Globalization has pulled millions of people out of poverty in India and China, and multiplied the size of the global middle class. It has raised the global standard of living faster than that at any other time in the history of the world, and it is supporting astounding growth. All world economic activity was valued at $7 trillion in 1950. That’s equal to how much growth took place over just the past decade, even including the recent downturn. Whatever people’s fears of change, globalization is here to stay—and, if properly managed, it will be a good thing.
Ability | Chance | Friend | Good | Important | Lesson | Listening | Meaning | News | People | Question | Respect | Talking | Will | World | Respect |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
A great nation is not led by a man who simply repeats the talk of the street-corners or the opinions of the newspapers. A nation is led by a man who hears more than those things; or who, rather, hearing those things, understands them better, unites them, puts them into a common meaning; speaks, not the rumors of the street, but a new principle for a new age; a man in whose ears the voices of the nation do not sound like the accidental and discordant notes that come from the voice of a mob, but concurrent and concordant like the united voices of a chorus, whose many meanings, spoken by melodious tongues, unite in his understanding in a single meaning and reveal to him a single vision, so that he can speak what no man else knows, the common meaning of the common voice. Such is the man who leads a great, free, democratic nation.
Action | Credit | Destroy | Determination | Future | Growth | Men | Money | Public | Question | Reason | System |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor.
Question |
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar, but a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his condition.
Control | Excellence | Justice | Opinion | Play | Public | Reason | Restraint | Spirit | Excellence | Talent |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.
Government | Man | Opinion | World | Parting | Government |
We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
Discussion | Justice | Necessity | Question |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Whate'er my doom; it cannot be unhappy: God hath given me the boon of resignation.
Opinion |