This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The responsibility for change… lies with us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical. This means fighting off the idea-assassins who rush forward to kill any new suggestion on grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, not matter how absurd, oppressive, or unworkable it may be. It means fighting for freedom of expression – the right of people to voice their ideas, even if heretical." - Alvin Toffler
"Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man." - Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
"Feelings are chemical and can kill or cure." - Bernie S. Siegel
"It takes more distress and poison to kill someone who has peace of mind and loves life." - Bernie S. Siegel
"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. the universe knows none of this. Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of morality." - Blaise Pascal
"Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?" - Blaise Pascal
"Man is but a reed, the feeblest of Nature's growths, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him; a breath, a drop of water, may prove fatal. But were the universe to kill him, he would still be more noble than his slayer; for man knows that he is crushed, but the universe does not know that it crushes him." - Blaise Pascal
"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds." - Carl Sagan
"Whoever is out of patience is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn into bees, and kill themselves in stinging others." - Francis Bacon
"You cannot kill time without injuring eternity." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong." - Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
"Time: That which people are always trying to kill, but which ends in killing them." - Herbert Spencer
"It isn’t a population that demands war… it is the leaders who demand war and who prepare the population for war… If there was a spontaneous urge to kill, why would we need a draft!" - Howard Zinn
"As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself." - John Milton
"A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ." - John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck
"The ideals men die for often become the prejudices their descendants kill for." - Paul Eldridge
"He that stabs another can kill his body; but he that stabs himself, kills his own soul." - Robert Burton
"We ignore the time that is open to us. We diminish ourselves by wishing time to pass.... We commonly conceive of time as something external to ourselves... something we can “spend,” “serve” or “kill.”" - Robert Grudin
"Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees." - Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL
"The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once." - Thomas Carlyle
"Death cannot kill what never dies." - Thomas Traherne
"Those men who destroy a healthful constitution of body by intemperance and an irregular life do as manifestly kill themselves as those who hang or poison or drown themselves." - William Shakespeare
"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery." - Anaïs Nin, born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell
"The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty or hunger." - Fidel Castro, fully Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
"I have often asked myself whether I am not more heavily obligated to the hardest years of my life than to any others. As my inmost nature teaches me, whatever is necessary as seen from the heights and in the sense of a great economy is also the useful par excellence: one should not only bear it, one should love it. Amor fati: that is my inmost nature. And as for my long sickness, do I not owe it indescribably more than I owe to my health? I owe it a higher health, one which is made stronger by whatever does not kill it. I also owe my philosophy to it. Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit... Only great pain, that long, slow pain in which we are burned with green wood, as it were - pain which takes its time - only this forces us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths and to put away all trust, all good-naturedness, all that would veil, all mildness, all that is medium - things in which formerly we may have found our humanity. I doubt that such pain makes us "better," but I know that it makes us more profound. " - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"That which does not kill me makes me stronger. " - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons." - Golda Meir, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson
"Never wound a snake; kill it. " - Harriet Tubman
"If you lose touch with nature you lose touch with humanity. If there's no relationship with nature then you become a killer; then you kill baby seals, whales, dolphins, and man either for gain, for sport, for food, or for knowledge." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Is it worse to kill someone than to let someone die? It seems obvious to common sense that it is worse. We allow people to die, for example, when we fail to contribute money to famine-relief efforts; but even if we feel somewhat guilty, we do not consider ourselves murderers. Nor do we feel like accessories to murder when we fail to give blood, sign an organ-donor card, or do any of the other things that could save lives. Common sense tells us that, while we may not kill people, our duty to give them aid is much more limited." - James Rachels
"Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself." - James Froude, fully James Anthony Froude
"If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls." - Jane Goodall, fully Dame Jane Morris Goodall, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall
"The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death?" -
"The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death? " - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try,no hell below us, above us only sky,imagine all the people, living for today. Imagine there's no countries,it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too,imagine all the people, living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one,I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one. Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man, imagine all the people, sharing all the world. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one. " - John Lennon
"We are constantly amazed by how much people will do when they are not told what to do by management." In the new knowledge-based economy, people should make their own decision. Managing less is managing better. Close supervision, control and bureaucracy kill the competitive spirit of the company. "Weak managers are the killers of business; they are the job killers. You can't manage self-confidence into people." - Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.
"It has become almost banal to say that the atomic age has fundamentally altered the nature of war. No nuclear power can tell another: “Do as I say or I shall kill you,” but is reduced to saying: “Do as I say or I shall kill us both,” which is an entirely different matter." - John G. Stoessinger
"I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. " - Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
"The use of a mere dozen nuclear weapons ... would be a human catastrophe without parallel. ... Because so few weapons can kill so many people, even far-reaching disarmament proposals would leave us implicated in plans for unprecedented slaughter of innocent people. The sole measure that can free us from this burden is abolition." - Jonathan Schell, fully Jonathan Edward Schell
"A slander is like a hornet; if you cannot kill it dad the first blow, better not strike at it. " - Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek