This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.
Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Ends | Responsibility |
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
Humility is the most excellent natural cure for anger in the world, for he, that by daily considering his own infirmities and failings, makes the error of his servant or neighbor to be his own case, and remembers that he daily needs God’s pardon and his brother’s charity, will not be apt to rage at the levities, or misfortunes, or indiscretions of another.
Anger | Charity | Error | God | Humility | Pardon | Rage | Will | World |
The machine is one of the most compelling rational of human discoveries. The madness is in those who would use a rational thing to further the irrational ends of exploitation and domination.
Angus Wilson, fully Sir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson
All the seven deadly sins are self destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least, lust and gluttony, avarice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape.
Anger | Appetite | Avarice | Effort | Envy | Fear | Gluttony | Lust | Power | Pride | Self | Sloth |
Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
Accomplishment | Ends | Forethought | Intelligence | Object | Purpose | Purpose | System | Work |
An integral part of possessing a genuine moral clarity may be to recognize that rarely, if ever, does any moral situation boil down to an instance of absolute good versus absolute evil...Genuine moral clarity involves ceaseless and rigorous questioning and evaluation of one's works and deeds and ends in life, and the means one chooses to realize one's works and deeds and ends.
Absolute | Deeds | Ends | Evil | Good | Life | Life | Means | Deeds |
A significant life - one that is more than just happy or meaningful - requires dedication to ends that we choose because they exceed the goal of personal well-being. We attain and feel our significance in the world when we create, and act for, ideals that may originate in self-interest, but ultimately benefit others.
Dedication | Ends | Happy | Ideals | Life | Life | Self | Self-interest | World |
Ultimately, what leads to wise choices is love—the attention to others as ends in themselves, as I am an end in myself, not a means to an end. The way love is implemented and practiced is care, which is attending to the true needs of others. So wise choices come about through care.