This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Kenneth Kaunda, fully Kenneth David Kaunda
Passive resistance is a sport for gentleman (and ladies) – just like the pursuit of war, a heroic enterprise for the ruling classes but a grievous burden for the rest.
Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others.
The established religious institutions are bastions of ignorance in a world where knowledge has become the most valuable commodity. Well-entrenched, these institutions hold back social progress, dividing people who otherwise have no reason to oppose one another, fanning the flames of militarism and nationalism. Most of all, however, they are promoting ignorance and falsehoods at the expense of truth. How can society advance under such erroneous belief systems?
Belief | Ignorance | Knowledge | People | Progress | Reason | Society | Truth | World | Society |
Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
Contrary to what many anti-intellectuals maintain, science is by nature a much more humble enterprise than any religion or other ideology. This must be so given the self-correcting mechanisms that are incorporated into the scientific process, regardless of the occasional failures of individual scientists.
Individual | Nature | Religion | Science | Self |
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate.
Government | Government |
Alexis de Tocqueville, Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
One of the most ordinary weakness of the human intellect is to seek reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
Logic | Peace | Principles | Weakness | Intellect |
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, fully Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.
Life | Life | Misfortune | Position | Property | Superiority | Afraid |
There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.
Chance | Cruelty | God | Humanity | Justice | Mercy | Merit | Motives | Service | Will | Cruelty | Value | Victim |
C. S. Lewis, fully Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, called "Jack" by his family
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey "people." People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war.... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest....
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The superior man develops his personality by means of his wealth, the inferior man develops wealth at the expense of his personality.
Man | Means | Personality | Wealth |
Faith is the very heroism and enterprise of intellect. Faith is not a passivity but a faculty. Faith is a power, the material of effect. Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants.
I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
Wishes |
Frédéric Bastiat, fully Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle; but the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and struggles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds.