This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
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.
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.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Conspiracy | Conversation | Diversion | Ends | People | Public |
All men seek one goal: success or happiness. The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society. First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal - a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends - wisdom, money, materials and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.
Ends | Means | Men | Money | Service | Society | Success | Wisdom |
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
Man - every man - is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others. He must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing other to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.
Achievement | Ends | Life | Life | Man | Means | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Self-interest | Work | Happiness |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
All moral rules must be tested by examining whether they tend to realize ends that we desire. I say ends that we desire, not ends that we ought to desire... Outside human desires there is no moral standard.