This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"If your God dislikes idolatry, why does He not destroy the idols and so put temptation out of the way?" - Rabbinical Proverbs
"Crates threw his gold into the sea, saying, "I will destroy thee, lest thou destroy me." If men do not put the love of the world to death, the love of the world will put them to death." - Ralph Venning
"To make wisdom to be regulated by such a plumbean and flexible rule as that [the will] is, is quite to destroy the nature of it." - Ralph Cudworth
"They can laugh, but they can't deny us. They can curse and kill us, but they can't destroy us. This land is ours because we come out of it, we bled in it, our tears watered it, we fertilized it with our dead. So the more of us they destroy, the more it becomes filled with the spirit of our redemption." - Ralph Ellison, fully Ralph Waldo Ellison
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
"Brother: we do not wish to destroy your religion, or to take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own." - Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL
"The Great Spirit does right. He knows what is best for his children. We are satisfied. Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion, or to take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own." - Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL
"To the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible." - Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
"It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life." - René Dubos, fully René Jules Dubos
"Man will survive as a species for one reason: He can adapt to the destructive effects of our power-intoxicated technology and of our ungoverned population growth, to the dirt, pollution and noise of a New York or Tokyo. And that is the tragedy. It is not man the ecological crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of human life." - René Dubos, fully René Jules Dubos
"Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive in His universe till all enemies shall be put under His feet, and God shall be all in all." - Charles Kingsley
"The Godless would deny and destroy human rights .... the liberties of a nation cannot be secure when belief in God is abandoned." - Richard Halverson, fully Richard Christian Halverson
"Every deviation from the rules of charity and brotherly love, of gentleness and forbearance, of meekness and patience, which our Lord prescribes to his disciples, however it may appear to be founded on an attachment to Him and zeal for His service, is in truth a departure from the religion of Him, "the Son of Man," who "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."" - Richard Mant
"Weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword." - Richard Whately
"Things I don't understand don't destroy my faith in the things I do understand." - Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
"Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"Others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win, unless you hate them. And then, you destroy yourself." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"The greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes when you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes; because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain... Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember: Others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win, unless you hate them. And then, you destroy yourself." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin' the nuns; that's been goin' on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That's what's happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. Let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"Americans revere both the Constitution and an independent Court that applies the document's provisions. The Court has done many excellent things in our history, and few people are willing to see its power broken. The difficulty with all proposals to respond to the Court when it behaves unconstitutionally is that they would create a power to destroy the Court's essential work as well." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
"As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds and ruin those husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks they fertilized and enriched, so our passions, when they grow exorbitant and unruly, destroy those virtues to which they might be very serviceable whilst kept within their bounds." - Robert Boyle
"Misery assails riches, as lightning does the highest towers; or as a tree that is heavy laden with fruit breaks its own boughs, so do riches destroy the virtue of their possessor." - Robert Burton
"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." - Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
"The Arabs will always dream to destroy us. I do not believe that they will recognize us as part of this region." - Yitzhak Shamir, born Icchak Jaziernicki
"My breast I am smiting, My own sins indicting. How then canst Thou draw me To strife and thus awe me, And bring Me to judgment? My branch hangeth ailing, My eyelid is failing, My aims to derision Are turned by the vision Of Thee bringing judgment. The creditor calleth, The dread decree falleth, The awful day breaking God’s creatures sets quaking In fear of His judgment. Through Thy attributes preaching, Almighty, and teaching, O weigh aberration In the scale of salvation, Nor bring us to judgment. In Thy merciful fashion Award us compassion, That man who but dust is May handle with justice The haters of judgment. Like a vapour evanished, Man is melted and banished, His birth is coëval With a harvest of evil, ’Tis Thou must bring judgment. We await—O behold us— Thy love to enfold us. Did Thy warning not hasten Our impulse to chasten? For the Lord loveth judgment." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"Strayed in mid-youth, rouse up, nor sleep, for lo! The days of youth like clouds of smoke will pass. Ere evening falls, thou shalt be withered grass, Though morning saw thee like a lily blow. Why waste on ancestors a heated breath, Or note which progeny was Abraham’s? Whether his food be herbs or Bashan rams, Man, wretched wight, is on his way to death." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"Nor envy's snaky eye, finds harbour here, Nor flatterers' venomous insinuations, Nor cunning humorists' puddled opinions, Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury, Nor time prattled away, cradle of ignorance, Nor causeless duty, nor comber of arrogance, Nor trifling title of vanity dazzleth us, Nor golden manacles stand for a paradise" - Philip Sidney, fully Sir Philip Sidney
"This administration is totally colorblind." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
"Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious." - Russell Kirk
"The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
"The honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
"A learned man who is ruled by his passions is like a blind man holding a torch: he guides others but not himself." - Sa'di (or Saadi), pen name of Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, born Muslih-uddin NULL
"To seek the highest good is to live well." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"And let us be very careful of the malice and the subtlety of the Satan, who wishes that a man not raise his mind and heart to God." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"Do not be afraid of undertaking too much of what you can do without coming and going; but fear only the thought of doing more than you are doing and more than God is giving you the means to do." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"Excess in the practice of virtue is no less imperfect than the lack of it." - Saint Vincent de Paul
"I've tried to live without fear. Fear paralyzes you. I've tried to get on with my life." - Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
"Entertaining angels unawares: It is always we who are to entertain the angels, and never they us. I cannot, however, think that an angel would be a very entertaining person, either as guest or host." - Samuel Butler
"Our self-conceit sustains, and always must sustain us." - Samuel Butler
"O Rudra, Thou who dwellest in the body and bestowest happiness! Look upon us with that most blessed form of Thine, which is auspicious, unterrifying and all good." - Shvetashvatara Upanishad
"Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct... and to refrain from destruction." - Simone Weil
"If people were told: what makes carnal desire imperious in you is not its pure carnal element. It is the fact that you put into it the essential part of yourself—the need for Unity, the need for God—they wouldn’t believe it. To them it seems obvious that the quality of imperious need belongs to the carnal desire as such. In the same way it seems obvious to the miser that the quality of desirability belongs to gold as such, and not to its exchange value." - Simone Weil
"All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn´t come fast enough. Instead of being open, you´re closed up tight. That´s the worst sin of all - the sin of omission." - Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
"The noblest works, like the temple of Solomon, are brought to perfection in silence." - Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
"I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL