This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life, is a monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"The very idea of some danger, the very thought that the moral corruption so prevalent and pervading in the Roman world threatened to creep into the morals and customs of the clergy caused him no end of trembling and fear....He could be seen warning, correcting and suspending from their functions those unworthy members of the clergy....Thus do we see, Venerable Brethren, how important it is for a bishop, before laying hands on new candidates for ordination, to apply himself, in God's presence, to a deep and thorough self-examination." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL
"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
"It would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
"The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in which people can fulfill the basic requirements necessary for the preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature." - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
"In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
"The modern man is . . . certain about his essential virtue . . . [and since] he does not see that he has a freedom of spirit which transcends both nature and reason . . . [he] is unable to understand the real pathos of his defiance of nature's and reason's laws. He always imagines himself betrayed into this defiance either by some accidental corruption in his past history or by some sloth of reason. Hence he hopes for redemption, either through a program of social reorganization or by some scheme of education." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
"The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination." - Richard Hofstadter
"This administration has proved that it is utterly incapable of cleaning out the corruption which has completely eroded it and reestablishing the confidence and faith of the American people in the morality and honesty of their government employees." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"O my God, If my iniquity is too great to be borne, What wilt Thou do for Thy great name’s sake? And if I do not wait on Thy mercies, Who will have pity on me but Thee? Therefore though Thou shouldst slay me, yet will I trust in Thee. For if Thou shouldst pursue my iniquity, I will flee from Thee to Thyself, And I will shelter myself from Thy wrath in Thy shadow, And to the skirts of Thy mercies I will lay hold until Thou hast had mercy on me, And I will not let Thee go till Thou hast blessed me. Remember, I pray Thee, that of slime Thou hast made me, And by all these hardships tried me, Therefore visit me not according to my wanton dealings, Nor feed me on the fruit of my deeds, But prolong Thy patience, nor bring near my day, Until I shall have prepared provision for returning to my eternal home, Nor rage against me to send me hastily from the earth, With my sins bound up in the kneading-trough on my shoulder. And when Thou placest my sins in the balance Place Thou in the other scale my sorrows, And while recalling my depravity and frowardness, Remember my affliction and my harrying, And place these against the others. And remember, I pray Thee, O my God, That Thou hast driven me rolling and wandering like Cain, And in the furnace of exile hast tried me, And from the mass of my wickedness refined me, And I know ’tis for my good Thou hast proved me, And in faithfulness afflicted me, And that it is to profit me at my latter end That Thou hast brought me through this testing by troubles. Therefore, O God, let Thy mercies be moved toward me, And do not exhaust Thy wrath upon me, Nor reward me according to my works, But cry to the Destroying Angel: Enough! For what height or advantage have I attained That Thou shouldst pursue me for my iniquity, And shouldst post a watch over me, And trap me like an antelope in a snare? Is not the bulk of my days past and vanished? Shall the rest consume in their iniquity? And if I am here to-day before Thee, "To-morrow Thine eyes are upon me and I am not." "And now wherefore should I die And this Thy great fire devour me?" O my God, turn Thine eyes favourably upon me For the remainder of my brief days, Pursue not their escaping survivors, Nor let the remnant of the crops that the hail hath spared Be finished off by the locust for my sins. For am I not the creation of Thy hands, And what shall it avail Thee That the worm shall take me for its meal And feed on the product of Thy hands?" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"There is this value in books that they enable us to converse with the dead. There is something in this beyond the mere intrinsic worth of what they have left " - Samuel Egerton Brydges
"The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it." - Saint Athanasius, aka Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Great, St. Athanasius I of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Confessor, St. Athanasius the Apostolic NULL
"We trust and believe in what we love." - Saint Catherine of Siena NULL
"Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis
"Virtue and true goodness, righteousness and equity, are things truly noble and excellent, lovely and venerable in themselves." - Samuel Clarke
"The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, the last corruption of degenerate man." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit. Very few carry their philosophy to places of diversion, or are very careful to analyze their enjoyments. The general condition of life is so full of misery, that we are glad to catch delight without inquiring whence it comes, or by what power it is bestowed." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"March swiftly to revenge the dead, to give life to the dying, to free the oppressed, and to give liberty to all." - Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
"Political rule is so natural and necessary to the human race that it cannot be withdrawn without destroying nature itself; for the nature of man is such that he is a social animal." - Robert Bellarmine, fully Saint Robert Bellarmine
"If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"By this (the work of the Spirit in our prayers) view he strikes us with holy dread and awe of the majesty of God, whereby is banished that lightness and vanity of heart, that makes such flaunting in the prayers of some." - Thomas Boston
"Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." - Thomas Jefferson
"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." - Thomas Jefferson
"Resolved... that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no farther, our confidence may go…In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson
"The treasury, lacking confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and bankers pretending to have money, whom it could have crushed at any moment…These jugglers were at the feet of government. For it was not, any confidence in their frothy bubbles, but the lack of all other money, which induced…people to take their paper." - Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"With nations, as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties; and history bears witness to the fact, that a just nation is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments, and wars to bridle others." - Thomas Jefferson
"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love." - Thomas Merton
"I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism, and work slowly towards a world federation of peaceful nations. How will this be possible Don't ask me. I don't know. But unless we develop a moral, spiritual, and political wisdom that is proportionate to our technological skill, our skill may end us." - Thomas Merton
"How near am I to happiness that earth exceeds not? not another like it. The treasures of the deep are not so precious, as are the conceal'd comforts of a man lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air of blessings, when I come but near the house; what a delicious breath marriage sends forth. The violet-bed's not sweeter. Honest wedlock is like a banqueting-house built in a golden, on which the spring's chaste flowers take delight to cast their modest odors." - Thomas Middleton
"There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the end of time, or of commanding forever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it...Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow." - Thomas Paine
"Hail Matrimony, made of Love! To thy wide gates how great a drove On purpose to be yok’d do come; Widows and Maids and Youths also, That lightly trip on beauty’s toe, Or sit on beauty’s bum. Hail fingerfooted lovely Creatures! The females of our human natures, Formèd to suckle all Mankind. ’Tis you that come in time of need, Without you we should never breed, Or any comfort find. For if a Damsel’s blind or lame, Or Nature’s hand has crook’d her frame, Or if she’s deaf, or is wall-eyed; Yet, if her heart is well inclin’d, Some tender lover she shall find That panteth for a Bride. The universal Poultice this, To cure whatever is amiss In Damsel or in Widow gay! It makes them smile, it makes them skip; Like birds, just curèd of the pip, They chirp and hop away. Then come, ye maidens! come, ye swains! Come and be cur’d of all your pains In Matrimony’s Golden Cage— 2" - William Blake
"Toscanini was hailing a great artist, but that voice was more than a magnificent personal talent. It was the religious voice of a whole religious people — probably the most God-obsessed (and man-despised) people since the ancient Hebrews." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
"A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment." - Walter Lippmann
"A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians." - William James
"The difference between a good man and a bad man is the choice of cause." - William James
"Speak but one word to me over the corn, over the tender, bowed locks of the corn." - William Morris
"For that mist may break when the sun is high and this soul forget its sorrow and the rose ray of the closing day may promise a brighter ‘morrow." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"The use of text messaging for propaganda purposes – known as “red-texting” – reveals another creative streak among China’s propaganda virtuosos. The practice may have grown out of a competition organized by one of China’s mobile phone operators to compose the most eloquent Party-admiring text message. Fast forward a few years, and senior telecom officials in Beijing are already busily attending “red-texting” symposia. “I really like these words of Chairman Mao: ‘The world is ours, we should unite for achievements. Responsibility and seriousness can conquer the world and the Chinese Communist Party members represent these qualities.’ These words are incisive and inspirational.” This is a text message that thirteen million mobile phone users in the Chinese city of Chongqing received one day in April 2009. Sent by Bo Xilai, the aggressive secretary of the city’s Communist Party who is speculated to have strong ambitions for a future in national politics, the messages were then forwarded another sixteen millions times. Not so bad for an odd quote from a long-dead Communist dictator." - Evgeny Morozov
"The world is dark around us and the prospect seems deepening in gloom. and yet there is light ahead. On the volume of the past in starry characters it is written — the starry legend greets us shining through the misty vistas of the future — that the great and noble shall not perish from among the sons of men, that the truth will triumph in the end, and that even the humblest of her servants may in this become the instrument of unending good. We are aiding in laying the foundations of a mighty edifice, whose completion shall not be seen in our day, no, nor in centuries upon centuries after us. But happy are we, indeed, if we can contribute even the least towards so high a consummation. The time calls for action. Up, then, and let us do our part faithfully and well. And oh, friends, our children's children will hold our memories dearer for the work which we begin this hour." - Felix Adler
"Those who act make mistakes; and those who do nothing really blunder." - Italian Proverbs
"Though a lie be swift, truth overtakes it." - Italian Proverbs
"As for what you say or hint of 'local' conditions: I knew of them. I don't think they have much changed (even for the worse). I used to hear them discussed by my mother; and have ever since taken a special interest in that part of the world. The treatment of color nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfortunately, not many retain that generous sentiment for long." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
"But Arwen went forth from the House, and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Then she said farewell to Eldarion, and to her daughters, and to all whom she had loved; and she went out from the city of Minas Tirith and passed away to the land of L¢rien, and dwelt there alone under the fading trees until winter came. Galadriel had passed away and Celeborn also was gone, and the land was silent. 'There at last when the Mallorn-leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and Elanor and Niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea." - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien