This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Wayne Gretsky, fully Wayne Douglas Gretzky, “The Great One”
I wasn’t naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that’s the way I’ll be as a coach.
Play | Responsibility | Time | Child | Think |
If God loves the world, might that not be proved by my own love for it? I prayed to know in my heart His love for the world, and this was my most prideful, foolish, and dangerous prayer. It was my step into the abyss. As soon as I prayed it, I knew I would die. I knew the old wrong and the death that lay in the world. Just as a good man would not coerce the love of his wife, God does not coerce the love of his human creatures, not for Himself or for the world or for one another. To allow that love to exist fully and freely, He must allow it not to exist at all. HIs love is suffering. It is our freedom and His sorrow. To love the world as much as even I could love it would be suffering also, for I would fail. And yet all the good I know is in this, that a man might so love this world that it would break his heart.
Need | Responsibility | Will |
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life. The word Intellectual suggests straight away. A man who's untrue to his wife.
Poetry | Responsibility |
W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Life has its pains and evils—its bitter disappointments; but like a good novel and in healthful length of days, there is infinite joy in seeing the World, the most interesting of continued stories, unfold.
W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming
It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and THEN do your best.
Control | People | Responsibility | Self-improvement | System |
W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming
A system cannot understand itself.
People | Responsibility | System | Understand |
W. Eugene Smith, fully William Eugene Smith
The purpose of all art is to cause a deep and emotion, also one that is entertaining or pleasing. Out of the depth and entertainment comes value.
Influence | Public | Responsibility | Thinking | Work |
Four Approaches to Growing into Silence - Be precise, accurate and totally present with everything that one does. Expose oneself as much as one can to nature, to the universe, all that is not man-made. Be a disciple of one's own understanding. Keep the body and brain sensitive, alert and sharp.
Aggression | Responsibility | Survival | Crisis |
It is not sufficient that a few in society penetrate to the depths of living and offer fascinating accounts about the oneness of all beings. What is necessary in these critical times is that all sensitive and caring people make a personal discovery of the fact of oneness and allow compassion to flow in their lives. When compassion and realization of oneness becomes the dynamic of human relationship, then humankind will evolve.
Attention | Care | Children | Freedom | Greed | Harmony | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Mistrust | Need | Peace | Responsibility | Study | Thought | Will | Thought |
We will discover that there are systems and structures that inevitably lead to aggression, exploitation, and war. We have accepted aggression as a way of living. We create and entrench ourselves in structures which culminate in wars. Retaining the structures and avoiding wars is not possible. You and I as individuals have to realize how we are responsible, how we cooperate with the systems and thereby participate in the violence and wars. And then we must begin to inquire whether we can discontinue cooperating with the systems, whether we can stop participating in wars, and explore alternative ways of living for ourselves.
Action | Happy | Individual | Responsibility | Society | Tomorrow | Society | Value |
Whether you try to influence the mind through ideas and concepts, or through discipline and vows, or through drugs, you are trying to stimulate artificially a state of silence. Perhaps if we are friendly with the mind, if we watch the mind, if we understand the mind, if we let it wander, let it roam about wherever it wants, let it exhaust its momentum by wandering, without scolding, without praising, without
Awareness | Defense | Force | Global | Heart | Responsibility | Theories | Truth | Understanding | Will | Witness | World | Awareness |
Viewing the world as a large pieced-together collection of fragments, some of which are labeled as friend and others as foe, begins internally. We map out our internal territories with the same positive or negative designations as we do external territories, and wars go on there as they do in the world. Internally, we are divided against ourselves; the emotions want one thing, the intellect another, the impulses of the body yet another, and a conflict takes place which is no different in quality, although it is in scale, from that of the world wars. If we are not related to ourselves in wholeness, is it any surprise that we cannot perceive the wholeness of the world? If we believe ourselves each to be a patched-together, unmatched assortment of desirable and undesirable features, motives at odds with each other, undigested beliefs and prejudices, fears, and insecurities, will we not project all this on the world?
Care | Individual | Meditation | Problems | Responsibility | Will | Happiness |
Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.
I looked at the moss-covered stones; some of them seemed to have the features of a man, but they could not answer me. Then I had a dream, and in my dream one of these small stones appeared to me and told me that the maker of all was Wakan Tanka, and that in order to honor him I must honor his works in nature. The stone said that by my search I had shown myself worthy of supernatural help. It said that if I were curing a sick person I might ask its assistance and that all the forces of nature would help me work a cure.
People | Responsibility | Society | Wisdom | Society |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Think about it. How would a man's day be different if he did not try to force his way through it? By not forcing anything he would avoid the tension and strife that always accompanies forcing. Forcing falls away when we clearly see it as a wrong move. We need only be conscious that anything gained by either subtle or violent force becomes just another chain.
Responsibility | Right | Wrong |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
Danger | Liberty | Responsibility | Danger |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.
Danger | Freedom | Liberty | Responsibility | Story | Danger |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future - sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.
Action | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Problems | Responsibility | Right | Think |
During war times not only one should himself take part in it but also encourage the courageous to do so by creating awareness, zeal and enthusiasm for the war in the society.
Responsibility | Truth | Waiting | War |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
A man who could not see the end of his provisional existence was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life.
Man | Responsibility | Will |