This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
James Baker, fully James Addison Baker, III
Politics drives diplomacy, not vice versa.
Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas.
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
Blessings | Capitalism | Vice |
Herbert Butterfield, fully Sir Herbert Butterfield
Butterfield, Empire is neither built nor maintained without some strokes of hard policy and with the generation of deep resentments. And if we are sometimes exasperated by officialdom even at home, can we imagine what must be the reaction of awakening minds in regions where the officialdom represents the foreigner, and the foreigner is in the country also to exploit it?
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
Without freedom there is no foundation for our Empire; without Empire there is no safeguard for our freedom.
Freedom |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
It is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save their honor, their religion, their soul and lay the foundation for that empire's fall or its regeneration.
Honor | Individual | Religion | Soul |
Too much to live with, too little to live for… In our own day this question of life purpose is more urgent than ever. Three factors have converged to fuel a search for significance without precedent in human history. First, the search for the purpose of life is one of the deepest issues of our experiences as human beings. Second, the expectation that we can all live purposeful lives has been given a gigantic boost by modern society’s offer of the maximum opportunity for choice and change in all we do. Third, our fulfillment is thwarted by this stunning fact: Out of more than a score of great civilizations in human history, modern Western civilization is the very first to have a no agreed-on answer to the question of the purpose of life… Most of us in the midst of material plenty, have spiritual poverty.
Change | Choice | Civilization | Day | Expectation | Fulfillment | History | Life | Life | Little | Opportunity | Plenty | Poverty | Precedent | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Search | Society | Expectation |
W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky
Sensuality is the vice of young men and of old nations.
Men | Nations | Sensuality | Old | Vice |
The worst type of sin, in fact the only “mortal sin” which has enslaved man for the greater part of history, is the institutionalized sin. Under the institution, vice appears to be, or is actually turned into, virtue. Apathy toward evil is thus engendered; recognition of sin becomes totally effaced; sinful institutions become absolutized, almost idolized, and sin becomes absolutely moral.
Apathy | Evil | History | Man | Mortal | Sin | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Prison walls cannot confine him who loves, for he belongs to an empire that is not of this world, being made not of material things but of the meaning of things; and thus he mocks at walls.
Just as virtue is its own reward, so is vice its own punishment.
Punishment | Reward | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |