This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The slogan, “All children can learn,” not only signals a high priority on equality (which I initially rejected in favor of excellence) but, perhaps inadvertently suggests one on learning. Busy explaining why we might give priority to excellence over equality, we may overlook this second difficulty. Is the aim of schooling learning and only learning? Is the proof of our success as educators found, then, in proof of learning? Again the temptation is to respond, “What do you mean by learning?” And then we are off on a discussion of levels and kinds of learning, methods of evaluation, alternative pedagogies, and — wondrous new idea — authentic assessment.
Children | Discussion | Equality | Excellence | Learning | Success | Temptation | Excellence | Temptation |
The reader must come armed , in a serious state of intellectual readiness. This is not easy because he comes to the text alone. In reading, one's responses are isolated, one'sintellect thrown back on its own resourses. To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistance of either beauty or community. Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity.
The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. The opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth (Niels Bohr)." By this, he means that we require a larger reading of the human past, of our relations with each other, the universe and God, a retelling of our older tales to encompass many truths and to let us grow with change.
Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading. He did not permit it and would fly in a rage when he caught me in the act. He hid the candles when he found that I was reading in secret. He did not want me to spoil my eyes. But I obtained tallow, made the wicking and cast the sticks into tin forms, and every night I would bush the keyhole and the cracks and read, often till dawn.
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
Truth cannot be said, cannot be written, cannot be indicated in any way. If it can be said, you will attain to truth just by hearing it; if it can be written, you will attain to truth just by reading it; if it can be indicated, you will attain to truth by mere indication. This is not possible, there is no way to transfer truth to you; there exists no bridge. It cannot be given, it cannot be communicated. Truth cannot be delivered, there is no way to deliver it. Once delivered it is dead, it has already become untrue.
We don’t exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times. Each time we read it we see it in a new light. That is the greatness of the holy scriptures. They are that way because they were created by holy prophets who experienced the truth. Each time we read these works we elevate ourselves to see a little more.
I have been told by the third grade teacher that my daughter Poppet is reading at middle school level. Yet if I leave Poppet a note in block letters telling her to feed the dogs I will come home to find the dogs have been ... given a swim in the above-ground pool, dressed in tutus, provided with hair weaves. What I will not find is that the dogs have been fed. 'I thought you wanted me to free the dogs,' says Poppet whose school district is not spending quite what D.C.'s is, thanks to voter rejection of the last school bond referendum.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
God has not be earned. He has only to be sought. Meditation is the only way. Beliefs, reading books — these cannot give you realization. ... Meditation brings proof of the existence of God. ... The more you meditate the more you will feel the endless joy of God.
As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly.
Reading does not consist merely of decoding the written word or language; rather, it is preceded by and intertwined with knowledge of the world. Language and reality are dynamically interconnected. The understanding attained by critical reading of a text implies perceiving the relationship between text and context.
Knowledge | Language | Reading | Reality | Relationship | Understanding |
The traditional religious rituals are important; it makes us partners in the experience of others Assembly of worship and prayer. But we must never forget the experience of spiritual experience of love is the first process and not in the rules of love… Traditional religions’ practices are important. They allow us to share with others the communal experience of adoration and prayer, but we must never forget spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love, and with love, there are no rules some may try to control their emotions and develop strategies for their behavior, others may turn to reading books of advice from experts on relationships but this is all folly. The heart decides and what it decides is all that really matters… We are not worshipping anyone or anything, we are simply communing with creation… Tragedy always brings about radical change in our lives, a change that is associated with the same principle: loss.
Advice | Books | Change | Control | Emotions | Experience | Heart | Love | Reading | Tragedy | Worship |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The most critical case in a corporation, especially a big one, is when everything goes well, when you have accomplished your objectives. When the temptation is to work twice as hard instead of saying, have we have accomplished our objectives, we have to think again.
Temptation | Work | Temptation | Think |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
A time of turbulence is one of great opportunity for those who can understand, accept, and exploit the new realities. One constant theme is, therefore, the need for the decision maker in the individual enterprise to face up to reality and resist the temptation of what "everybody knows," the temptations of the certainties of yesterday, which are about to become of deleterious superstitions of tomorrow. To manage in turbulent times, therefore, means to face up to the new realities. It means starting with the question: "What is the world really like?" rather than the assertions or assumptions that made sense only a few years ago.
Decision | Exploit | Individual | Means | Need | Opportunity | Reality | Sense | Temptation | Time | World | Temptation |
Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL
Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety.
Cost | Effort | Life | Life | Lord | Power | Reading | Rest | Truth | Work | Vicissitudes |
Pierre Trudeau, aka Pierre Elliott Trudeau, fully Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau
I bear solemn witness to the fact that NATO heads of state and of government meet only to go through the tedious motions of reading speeches, drafted by others, with the principal objective of not rocking the boat.
Government | Reading | Witness | Government |
I think there are cultural reasons why we are suspicious of anything that has to do with beauty. One is that many of us believe that beauty requires culture. You have to have read many books and you have got to have studied in order to understand and enjoy say music or a beautiful painting. And that is absolutely not true. Reading may help us deepen our appreciation of beauty, but beauty is for everyone. It’s true that we have a possibility of increasing our gamut of beauty, increasing our aesthetic intelligence, our ability to appreciate beauty so that we don’t appreciate it only in great works of art or only in nature or only in music, but we appreciate it also in everyday life. Some people appreciate beauty even in things that are very banal and obvious. They have a greater aesthetic intelligence in my opinion. And of course there is an enormous world of inner beauty. I think we can learn to appreciate not only outer beauty, but the inner beauty of people. The beauty of honesty, the beauty of kindness, the beauty of intelligence. Appreciating beauty that is not immediately evident may take some time, but once we tune into it it’s there to stay.
Ability | Aesthetic | Appreciation | Art | Beauty | Books | Intelligence | Music | Nature | Order | People | Reading | World | Appreciation | Art | Beauty | Learn | Think | Understand |
Pinchas Shapiro of Koretz, aka Pinchas or Pinchos of Koretz
R’ Pinchas said: “‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). The term echad [one] in the reading of the Shema, which proclaims the unity of G-d, [requires us to] state that there is nothing in the whole world other than the Holy One, Who fills the whole earth with His glory. The principal intention [of the commandment to recite the Shema] is that we should consider ourselves null and void, and [understand] that there is nothing to us but the soul within us, which is part of G-d above. Hence there is nothing in the whole world except the One G-d. Our principal thought when reciting the word echad should be that the whole earth is full of His glory and there is nothing [in the universe] devoid of Him”.
Earth | Glory | Intention | Lord | Nothing | Reading | Soul | Thought | Unity | World | Thought |