This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"What is best for the people is what they do for themselves." - Benjamin Franklin
"Young people tell what they are doing, old people what they have done and fools what they wish to do." - John French, fully Field Marshall John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, aka The Viscount French
"It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"Taboos are very ancient prohibitions which at one time were forced upon a generation of primitive people by an earlier generation. These prohibitions concerned actions for which there existed a strong desire. The prohibitions maintain themselves from generation to generation, perhaps only as the results of a tradition set up by paternal and social authority." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law - whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal... or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law." -
"Half of the secret of getting along with people is consideration of their views; the other half is toleration in one's own views." - Daniel Frohman
"Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home." - David Frost, fully Sir David Paradine Frost
"Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value. But if we got onto a planning planning basis, the government could trap pollutants in the stacks and spillages and get back more money than this would cost out of the stockpiled chemistries they'd be collecting. Margaret Mead gets cross with me when I talk like this because she says people are doing some very important things because they're worried and excited and I'm going to make them relax and stop doing those things. But we're dealing with something much bigger than we're accustomed to understanding, we're on a very large course indeed. You speak of racism, for example, and I tell you that there's no such thing as race. The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
"If you have some respect for people as they are, you ought to be and could be more effective in helping them to become better than they are." - Howard Gardner, fully Howard Earl Gardner
"Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determinations." - John Seaman Garns
"Negative thinking is depriving people of their natural birthright of health. It is the prime cause in shortening the lives of so many of us. And yet it is so simple to live a healthier, longer and so much happier life. We have only to recognize how God works His wonders through laws governing nature and "human nature."" - Walter M. Germain
"Those who are versed in the history of their country, in the history of the human race, must know that rigorous state prosecutions have always preceded the era of convulsion; and this era, I fear, will be accelerated by the folly and madness of our rulers. If the people are discontented, the proper mode of quieting their discontent is, not by instituting rigorous and sanguinary prosecutions, but by redressing their wrongs and conciliating their affections. Courts of justice, indeed, may be called in to the aid of ministerial vengeance; but if once the purity of their proceedings is suspected, they will cease to be objects of reverence to the nation; they will degenerate into empty and expensive pageantry, and become the partial instruments of vexatious oppression. Whatever may become of me, my principles will last forever. Individuals may perish; but truth is eternal. The rude blasts of tyranny may blow from every quarter; but freedom is that hardy plant which will survive the tempest and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil." - Joseph Gerrald
"I have no complex about wealth. I have worked hard for my money, producing things people need. I believe that the able industrial leader who creates wealth and employment is more worthy of historical notice than politicians or soldiers." - J. Paul Getty, fully Jean Paul Getty
"When I began to examine just how wealth is created, it seemed to me plain that it arises not from taking, but from giving. People get rich by giving rather than by taking, and this seemed to me to be a very important perception, because the reason for the crisis in capitalism today, it seems to me, is not its practical achievements, but rather the perception of its moral character." - George F Gilder
"People who make money often make mistakes, and even have major setbacks, but they believe they will eventually prosper, and they see every setback as a lesson to be applied in their toward success." - Jerry Gillies
"It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right." - William Ewart Gladstone
"The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil." - William Ewart Gladstone
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words... Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonplace; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead. It is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent that take generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they are new." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work on us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will. If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries there would be but a small balance in my favor." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people are satisfied with ornament." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The patriotism of antiquity becomes in modern societies a caricature. In antiquity, it developed naturally from the whole condition of a people, its youth, its situation, its culture - with us it is an awkward imitation. Our life demands, not separation from other nations, but constant intercourse; our city life is not that of the ancient city-state." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace. " - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Whenever I hear people talking about "liberal ideas," I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Some people speak as if hypocrites were confined to religion; but they are everywhere; people pretending to wealth when they have not a sixpence, assuming knowledge of which they are ignorant; shamming a culture they are far removed from adopting opinions they don't hold." - Albert Goldrich
"Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor." - Ellen Goodman
"Somewhere among the youth of today are minds capable of discovering ways to world peace, ways to deeper and more fulfilling lives, ways to new appreciations of beauty in art or literature or music, just as there have been minds capable of splitting the atom. Ours is the task of breaking through the thought barrier which keeps our young people from realizing their creative potentiality." - Samuel B. Gould
"To teach people to read without teaching them not to believe everything they read is only to prepare them for a new slavery." - Jean Guéhenno, given name Marcel-Jules-Marie Guéhenno
"Nothing shocks me more in the men of religion and their flocks than their... pretensions to be the only religious people." - Jean Guéhenno, given name Marcel-Jules-Marie Guéhenno
"People are afraid to think, or they don't know how. They fail to realize that, while emotions can't be surpressed, the mind can be strengthened. All over the world people are seeking peace of mind, but there can be no peace of mind without strength of mind." - Erich Gutkind
"A single mind can acquire a fair knowledge of the whole field of science, and find plenty of time to spare for ordinary human affairs. Not many people take the trouble to do so. But without a knowledge of science one cannot understand current events. That is why our modern our modern literature and art are mostly so unreal." - J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
"Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains. The more business a man has to do the more he is able to accomplish, for he learns to economize his time." - Matthew Hale, fully Sir Matthew Hale
"Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive." - Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"
"People have prejudices against a nation in which they have no acquaintances." - Philip G. Hamerton, fully Philip Gilbert Hamerton
"A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can." - Edith Hamilton
"There is generally no such thing as duty to the people who do it. They simply take life as it comes, meeting, not shirking its demands, whether pleasant or unpleasant; and that is pretty much all there is of it." - Gail Hamilton, Pseud. of Mary A. Dodge
"We live in a spelling bee culture where the demand is factual accuracy and everybody overlooks the absence of art or meaning in what's said. Too many people sent letters to Nero telling him he was fingering his fiddle wrong. This passion for data is a way of avoiding coming to terms with things." - Mark Harris
"The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children." - William Havard
"All good government must begin at home. It is useless to make good laws for bad people; what is wanted is this, to subdue the tyranny of the human heart." - Hugh Reginald Haweis
"If we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God." -
"Lots of people know a good thing the minute the other fellow sees it first." - Job E. Hodges
"Music is for the betterment and enrichment of the individual, just as education and reading are. When people come together to play music as they do to play bridge, civilization will have taken its longest stride forward since the beginning of time. Music is something to live with always, and children should be taught to regard it as a close and inalienable friend." - Jascha Heifetz
"Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn people." - Heinrich Heine
"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway