This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"It has been well said that ‘he who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander’. The two are not the same, but the good citizen ought to be capable of both; he should know how to govern like a freeman, and how to obey like a freeman - these are the virtues of a citizen." - Aristotle NULL
"Look about, my son, and see how little wisdom it takes to govern the world." - Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna af Södermöre, Count of Södermöre
"Wisdom, compassion and courage - these are three universally recognized moral qualities of man. It matters not in what way men come to the exercise of these moral qualities, the result is one and the same. When a man understands the nature and use of these three moral qualities, he will then understand how to put in order his personal conduct and character; he will understand how to govern men." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"To be fond of learning is to draw close to wisdom. To practice with vigor is to draw close to benevolence. To know the seen of shame is to draw close to courage. He who knows these three things knows how to cultivate his own character. Knowing how to cultivate his own character, he knows how to govern other men. Knowing how to govern other men, he knows how to govern the world, it states, and its families." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men each to govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience." - Edmund Burke
"The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action." - Eric Hoffer
"One father is enough to govern one hundred sons, but not a hundred sons one father." - George Herbert
"Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave." - George Gurdjieff, fully George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
"Democracy is based on the conviction that people have the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right to govern themselves with reason and justice." - Harry S. Truman
"Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice." - Harry S. Truman
"There is no liberty to men whose passions are stronger than their religious feelings; there is no liberty to men in whom ignorance predominates over knowledge; there is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Love it is – not conscience – that is God’s regent in the human soul, because it can govern the soul as nothing else can." - Henry Ward Beecher
"To talk of luck and chance only shows how little we really know of the laws which govern cause and effect." - Hosea Ballou
"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign asters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law. Systems which attempt to question it deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light." - Jeremy Bentham
"Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, Pain and Pleasure - they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think; every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it." - Jeremy Bentham
"Men have always found it easy to be governed. What is hard is for them to govern themselves." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
"Some labor with their minds and some labor with their strength. Those who labor with their minds govern others; those who labor with their strength are governed by others. Those who are governed by others support them; those who govern them are supported by them. This is a universal principal." - Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
"The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion - these are the two things that govern us." - Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
"He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself." - Philip Massinger
"A person must first govern themself ere they be fit to govern a family, and his family ere they be fit to bear the government of the commonwealth." - Walter Raleigh, fully Sir Walter Raleigh
"Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favored by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune’s greedily coveted favors, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity." -
"One cannot govern with 'buts'. " - Charles de Gaulle, fully Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
"To govern is always to choose among disadvantages. " - Charles de Gaulle, fully Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
"It is crucial to understand and to gain the conviction that the laws of cause and effect govern the universe and all beings. … There are only two way to erase the trace left by a harmful act: either by going through the experience of suffering that is its natural consequence, or by purifying it with the appropriate antidotes before the appearance of its dire effects." - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
"The body is likened to a small city: like two kings who wage war over a city, each desiring to capture it and rule over it, that is, to govern its inhabitants according to his will so that they obey him in all that he decrees for them, so do the two souls - the G‑dly [soul] and the animal [soul] - wage war against each other over the body and all its organs and limbs. The desire and will of the G‑dly soul is that it alone should rule over the person and direct him, and that all his limbs should obey it and surrender themselves completely to it and become a vehicle for it, and serve as a vehicle for its ten faculties [of intellect and emotion] and three "garments" [thought, speech and action]... and the entire body should be permeated with them alone, to the exclusion of any alien influence, G‑d forbid... While the animal soul desires the very opposite." - Shneur Zalman of Liadi
"I believe our students must first seek to understand the conditions, as far as possible without national prejudices, which have led to past tragedies and should strive to determine the great fundamentals which must govern a peaceful progression toward a constantly higher level of civilization. There are innumerable instructive lessons out of the past, but all too frequently their presentation is highly colored or distorted in the effort to present a favorable national point of view. In our school histories at home, certainly in years past, those written in the North present a strikingly different picture of our Civil War from those written in the South. In some portions it is hard to realize they are dealing with the same war. Such reactions are all too common in matters of peace and security. But we are told that we live in a highly scientific age. Now the progress of science depends on facts and not fancies or prejudice. Maybe in this age we can find a way of facing the facts and discounting the distorted records of the past." - George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.
"I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." - Golda Meir, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson
"The law does not fawn on the noble; the string does not yield to the crooked. Whatever the law applies to, the wise cannot reject nor can the brave defy. Punishment for fault never skips ministers, reward for good never misses commoners. Therefore, to correct the faults of the high, to rebuke the vices of the low, to suppress disorders, to decide against mistakes, to subdue the arrogant, to straighten the crooked, and to unify the folkways of the masses, nothing could match the law. To warn the officials and overawe the people, to rebuke obscenity and danger, and to forbid falsehood and deceit, nothing could match penalty. If penalty is severe, the noble cannot discriminate against the humble. If law is definite, the superiors are esteemed and not violated. If the superiors are not violated, the sovereign will become strong and able to maintain the proper course of government. Such was the reason why the early kings esteemed legalism and handed it down to posterity. Should the lord of men discard law and practice selfishness, high and low would have no distinction. Hence to govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong." - Han Fei, also Han Fei Zi, Han Feitzu and Han Fei Tzu
"To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem. " - Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
"A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." - James Madison
"In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed. " - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure - they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm." - Jeremy Bentham
"The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves. " - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will." - King James I of England
"It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others." - John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
"If far-reaching discoveries regarding the nature of matter and energy and the laws which govern the Universe have been made and worked on by civilizations that have disappeared, and if some of them have been preserved throughout the ages (which is by no means certain) this could only have been done by people of superior intelligence and in a language necessarily incomprehensible to the ordinary man. If, however, we reject this hypothesis we can nevertheless imagine, from one age to another, a succession of beings of exceptional gifts able to communicate with one another. Such beings are well aware that it is not in their interests to display their powers openly." - Louis Pauwels
"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"What greater vanity can there be, than to go about by our proportions and conjectures to guess at God? And to govern both him, and the world according to our capacity and laws?" - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Fairness does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
"Do you know? What does it mean that God exists? Means that justice and mercy is found and forgiveness exist. Meant to reassure the heart and soul and comfortable living heart and removes the right to be concerned and continued to his companions. Meaning... Tears will not go in vain and will not go without the fruit of patience and will not be good for nothing and will not pass the evil unchecked will not get away with crime without punishment. Means that the vineyard is to govern the existence and is not a stingy .. It is not printed decent take away what gives .. If God gave us life, he can not rob to death .. There can be negatively death to life .. But it is a move out to another life after death, then life again after the Baath and then to the mystic's in heaven forever." - Mustapha Mahmoud
"The central issue was whether the university was to continue to govern herself in an age-old and tested manner, or whether she was to reverse her earlier pattern of thoughtful, independent behavior to begin now to be governed by outside pressure." - Nathan Marsh Pusey
"Most social institutions seem to be designed to keep man in a state of intellectual and emotional mediocrity that makes him more fit to govern or be governed." - Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
"An important step, far-reaching in its consequences, was taken when man first sought the cause of change and decay in things themselves and in the laws which appeared to govern things, rather than in powers and forces outside of and beyond them. When the question was first asked, What is it that persists amid all changes and that underlies every change? A new era was about to dawn in the history of man's wonder and his desire to know." - Nicholas Murray Butler
"He who wants to govern must have insight into the hearts of men and act accordingly." - Paracelsus, aka 'Paracelsus the Great', born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim NULL
"If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards — in heaven if not on earth — all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins." - Paul Dirac, fully Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac