This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
Defeat |
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
We're going to [put] more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family
Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley
I can't quite define my aversion to asking questions of strangers. From snatches of family battles which I have heard drifting up from railway stations and street corners, I gather that there are a great many men who share my dislike for it, as well as an equal number of women who ... believe it to be the solution to most of this world's problems.
There is no reason to suppose that people today feel less than their grandfathers, but there is good reason to think that they are less able to read in a way which makes them feel. It is natural for them to blame books rather than themselves, and to demand fiction which is highly peppered, like a glutton whose palate is defective.
Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley
The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest.
It is not as though Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law was a precept from which splendid fiction could not be drawn; it is rather that what these small-time rebels choose to do is so trivial, so cheap, and in the end, so dreary.
In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.
Camera lies all the time. It's all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you... the moment you've made a choice, you're lying about something larger. 'Lying' is an ugly word. I don't mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.
Sense |
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
My creed: To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits, to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love family and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world; to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words; to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then be resigned. This is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and the heart.
Courage | Creed | Dawn | Deeds | Destroy | Family | Genius | Happy | Life | Life | Love | Pity | Receive | Religion | Slavery | War | Deeds | Truths |
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
My Library - Like prim Professor of a College I primed my shelves with books of knowledge; And now I stand before them dumb, Just like a child that sucks its thumb, And stares forlorn and turns away, With dolls or painted bricks to play. They glour at me, my tomes of learning. You dolt! they jibe; you undiscerning Moronic oaf, you make a fuss, With highbrow swank selecting us; Saying: I'll read you all some day' - And now you yawn and turn away. Unwanted wait we with our store Of facts and philosophic lore; The scholarship of all the ages Snug packed within our uncut pages; The mystery of all mankind In part revealed - but you are blind. You have no time to read, you tell us; Oh, do not think that we are jealous Of all the trash that wins your favour, The flimsy fiction that you savour: We only beg that sometimes you Will spare us just an hour or two. For all the minds that went to make us Are dust if folk like you forsake us, And they can only live again By virtue of your kindling brain; In magic print they packed their best: Come - try their wisdom to digest… Said I: Alas! I am not able; I lay my cards upon the table, And with deep shame and blame avow I am too old to read you now; So I will lock you in glass cases And shun your sad, reproachful faces. My library is noble planned, Yet in it desolate I stand; And though my thousand books I prize, Feeling a witling in their eyes, I turn from them in weariness To wallow in the Daily Press. For, oh, I never, never will The noble field of knowledge till: I pattern words with artful tricks, As children play with painted bricks, And realize with futile woe, Nothing I know - nor want to know. My library has windowed nooks; And so I turn from arid books To vastitude of sea and sky, And like a child content am I With peak and plain and brook and tree, Crying: Behold! the books for me: Nature, be thou my Library!
Blame | Books | Children | Knowledge | Magic | Mystery | Play | Shame | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Words | Child | Old | Think |
John Bowring, fully Sir John Bowring
There is in every human heart some not completely barren part, where seeds of truth and love might grow, and flowers of generous virtue flow; to plant, to watch, to water there, this be our duty, be our care.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.
Family |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
As government expands, liberty contracts.
Family | Fear | Government | Power | Public | Temptation | Time | Will | Government | Afraid | Temptation |
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else.
Family |
Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker
The Government cannot afford to have a country made up entirely of rich people, because rich people pay so little tax that the Government would quickly go bankrupt. This is why Government men always tell us that labor is man's noblest calling. Government needs labor to pay its upkeep.