This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
The pessimist stared at his visitor. He had never talked with the Devil before. But he had read descriptions of him by people who had and who remembered Satan as a goat, a bull, a dog, a cat, a big black man with horns, claws and a tail. The presence beside him looked distinguished, relaxed, urbane. Except for a face too characterful to be contemporary, the Devil might have been a movie magnate, an airline executive, a college president, a great surgeon or a grain speculator. “And yet,” thought the pessimist, “those are certainly not the eyes of a Yale man.”
Change | Politics | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Reform | Revolution |
Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan.
Civilization | Culture | Distinguish | Dreams | Looks | Man | Peace | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Science |
Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
Out of that vision of Almighty Man that we call Communism and that agony of souls and bodies that we call the revolution of the 20th century was left that pinch of irreducible dust: “Who pays is boss, and who takes money must also give something.” It might stand as the motto of every welfare philosophy.
Hope | Individual | Man | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Treason |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage is closed and done. From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells; but I with mournful tread walk the deck my captain lies, fallen cold and dead.
Dignity | Individual | Law | Liberty | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Wise |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
The real artist is in humanity. What are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of them all.
The task is not simply to reiterate old poetry, but to learn from its cadences what now needs to be uttered. Both the distorted chosen people and the imperious empire run roughshod over such utterance. But the poet never doubts that the utterance has staying power, for when rightly uttered, it may indeed be "a word from the LORD."
Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.
Consciousness | Man | Men | Purpose | Purpose |
There are many who are hypocrites although they think they are not, and there are many who are afraid of being hypocrites although they certainly are not. Which is the one and which is the other God knows, and none but He.
Cause | Desire | Grace | Lord | Means | Prayer | Purpose | Purpose | Receive | Will |
He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.
Its massive height near the City of Heaven joins a thousand mountains to the corner of the sea. Clouds, when I look back, close behind me, mists, when I enter them, are gone. A central peak divides the wilds and weather into many valleys... Needing a place to spend the night, I call to a wood-cutter over the river.
Day | Devotion | Doubt | Gold | Happy | Life | Life | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Wise |
Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need. Indeed, we seem to collect information because we have the ability to do so, but we are so busy collecting it that we haven't devised a means of using it. The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows.
Capacity | Purpose | Purpose | Vision | Leadership |
Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an
Nature is the original character of the mind. Heaven is the source of Nature.
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell.
Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
If you're always in a hurry, always trying to get ahead of the other guy, or someone else's performance is what motivates you, then that person is in control of you.
Commitment | Life | Life | Money | Purpose | Purpose | Will |
Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
In a world of individuals, comparison is a senseless activity.