This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"If we believe that mankind has steadily progressed towards ahimsa (i.e., love), it follows that it has to progress towards it still further. Nothing in this world is static, everything is kinetic. If there is not progression, then there is inevitable retrogression. No one can remain without the eternal cycle, unless it be God Himself." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"The most ignorant among mankind have some truth in them. We are all sparks of Truth. The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as-yet-Unknown-Truth, which is God." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by love; that evil can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness… that there is great security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth, for the violent, who resort to the sword, are destined to perish with the sword." - William Lloyd Garrison
"The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite! There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries." - Jules de Goncourt, fully Jules Huot de Goncourt
"The history of mankind is the history of thought – of the gradual ascendancy of mind over matter." - B. H. Liddell Hart, fully Captain B. H. Liddell
"If the instinctual and repressed kindness of mankind were suddenly let loose upon the earth, sooner than we think would we be members one of another, sitting around one family hearth-stone, and singing the song of the new humanity." - George D. Herron
"The solution of mankind’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence of it." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own." - William Ralph Inge
"The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinion than that they are in fashion." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"I have an unshakable belief that mankind’s higher nature is on the whole still dormant. The greatest souls reveal excellencies of mind and heart which their lesser fellows possess – hidden." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Purity and stillness are the correct principles for mankind." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"The wake of Moses, of Buddha, of Confucius, of Lao Tse, of Christ, probably exert a greater influence over humanity today than when these men were pondering over its fate and happiness. No man ever disappears completely if he strives to do good and expects no reward outside of the joy of having contributed to the progress of mankind." - Pierre Lecomte du Noüy
"The stock of ideas which mankind has to work with is very limited, like the alphabet, can at best have an air of freshness given it by new arrangements and combinations, or by application to new times and circumstances." - James Russell Lowell
"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the older order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"Religion, like everything great and noble and demanding within us, increases the tension in mankind; and together with the tension, suffering; and with the suffering, spiritual effort; and with the spiritual effort, joy." - Jacques Maritain
"Mankind can best be led by the nose with morality." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Of all the curable illnesses that afflict mankind, the hardest to cure, and the one most likely to leave its victim a chronic invalid, is adolescence." - Bonaro Wilkerson Overstreet
"[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel." - Thomas Paine
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." - Thomas Paine
"Fear and Gain are great Perverters of Mankind, and where either prevails the Judgment is violated." - William Penn
"There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But… the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder… This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes." -
"All those who labor in the discovery and communication of truth, if they are actuated by a love of it and a sense of its importance to the happiness of mankind may consider themselves as workers together with God." - Joseph Priestley
"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind." - Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
"All mankind is divided into three classes – the immovable, the movable, and those who move." - Arab Proverbs
"He who is satisfied with the portion allotted to him by his Creator may properly be deemed the richest of all mankind." - Arab Proverbs
"Happy nations have no history. History is the study of mankind's misfortunes." - Raymond Queneau
"If the great religions continue to waste their energies in a fratricidal war instead of looking upon themselves as friendly partners in the supreme task of nourishing the spiritual life of mankind, the swift advance of secular humanism and moral materialism is assured." - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
"The history of morals is the extension of the reciprocal or selfish virtues from the clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, from the nation to all communities living under the same government, civil or religious, then people of the same colour, and finally to all mankind." - Winwood Reade, fully William Winwood Reade
"The highest goal of mankind is the liberty of the individual." - Ernest Renan, aka Joseph Ernest Renan
"Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder." - Fritz A. Rothschild
"The wars of mankind are like children’s fights - all meaningless, pitiless and contemptible." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"And what is the education of mankind if not the passage from faith in authority to personal conviction and to the sustained practice of the intellectual duty to consent to no idea except by virtue of its recognized truth, to accept no fact until its reality has been, in one way or another, established." - Louis Auguste Sabatier
"All the kindness which a man puts out into the world works on the heart and thoughts of mankind." - Albert Schweitzer
"Two perceptions cast their shadow over my existence. One consists in my realization that the world is inexplicably mysterious and full of suffering; the other, in the fact that I have been born into a period of spiritual decadence in mankind." - Albert Schweitzer
"The knowledge that mankind needs is not the way or principle which has an absolute existence, but the particular truths for here and now and for particular individuals. Absolute truth is imaginary, abstract, vague, without evidence, and cannot be demonstrated." - Hu Shih, born Hu Hung-hsing
"The only true way to make the mass of mankind see the beauty of justice is by showing to them in pretty plain terms the consequences of injustice." - Sydney Smith
"Let us remember that no blessing of God is so sweet as life and liberty. Let us remember that the stature of all mankind is diminished so long as nations or parts of nations are still unfree. Let us remember that the highest purpose of man is the liberation of man from his bonds of fear, his bonds of human degradation, his bonds of poverty – the liberation of man from the physical, spiritual, and intellectual bonds which for too long stunted the development of mankind’s majority." - Achmad Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo
"Whosoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." - Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
"The Torah preceded creation in that it was the idea behind creation. It is the primordial knowledge of existence. It is the idea to which life is nothing more than a means. God is eternal, and the temporary nature of the physical creation is contradictory to eternity. Creation, therefore, it not an end in itself; it is a means. It is a means for giving the part of creation made in the Divine image – mankind – the opportunity to earn a share with Hashem in eternity." - Ezriel Tauber
"Progress towards the welfare of mankind is made not by the persecutors but by the persecuted… Only goodness, meeting evil and not infected by it, conquers evil." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"Duty becomes a disease with us; it drags us ever forward... This duty, this idea of duty is the midday summer sun which scorches the innermost soul of mankind... The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God." - Vivekananda, fully Sri or Swami Vivekananda, born Narendra Nath Datta NULL
"It is one of the goals of religions to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears." - Albert Einstein
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." - Albert Einstein