This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.
Capitalism | Greed | Organization | Will |
John L. Lewis, fully John Llewellyn Lewis
The organization and constant onward sweep of this movement exemplifies the resentment of the many toward the selfishness, greed and the neglect of the few.
Greed | Neglect | Organization | Resentment |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
Organization | Will |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
No feats of heroism are needed to achieve the greatest and most important changes in the existence of humanity; neither the armament of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads and machines, nor the arrangement of exhibitions, nor the organization of workmen's unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor the perfection of aerial navigation; but a change in public opinion. And to accomplish this change no exertions of the mind are needed, nor the refutation of anything in existence, nor the invention of any extraordinary novelty; it is only needful that we should not succumb to the erroneous, already defunct, public opinion of the past, which governments have induced artificially; it is only needful that each individual should say what he really feels or thinks, or at least that he should not say what he does not think.
Change | Existence | Important | Individual | Invention | Mind | Opinion | Organization | Perfection | Public |
Leland Stanford, fully Amasa Leland Stanford
In a condition of society and under an industrial organization which places labor completely at the mercy of capital, the accumulations of capital will necessarily be rapid, and an unequal distribution of wealth is at once to be observed.
Labor | Mercy | Organization | Society | Wealth | Will | Society |
Lester Pearson, fully Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson
It would be especially tragic if the people who most cherish ideals of peace, who are most anxious for political cooperation on a wider than national scale, made the mistake of underestimating the pace of economic change in our modern world.
Change | Cooperation | Ideals | Mistake | People |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Of all the agonies in life, that which is most poignant and harrowing; that which for the time annihilates reason, and leave our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart, is the conviction that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love.
Organization | Time | Trust |
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.
Capitalism | Cooperation | Life | Life | Man | Men | Society | System | Society |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.
Individual | Means | Organization | Power | Responsibility |
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.
Capitalism | Cooperation | Men | Society | System | Society |
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner's success as a means for the attainment of his own.
Action | Attainment | Cooperation | Means | Success |
Max Bircher-Benner, fully Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner
Absorption and organization of sunlight, the essence of life, takes place almost exclusively within the plants. The organs of the plant are therefore a kind of biological accumulation of light. These are the basis of what we call food, whence animal and human bodies derive their substance and energy. The nutritional energy may thus be, termed organized sunlight energy. Hence sunlight is the driving force of the cells of our body.
Energy | Force | Organization |
Mary Kay Ash, fully Mary Kathlyn Wagner Ash
We need leaders who add value to the people and the organization they lead; who work for the benefit of others and not just for their own personal gain. Leaders who inspire and motivate, not intimidate and manipulate; who live with people to know their problems in order to solve them and who follow a moral compass that points in the right directions regardless of the trends.
Need | Order | Organization | People | Problems | Right | Work | Value |
All good and beneficial prayer is… at bottom nothing else than an energy of aspiration towards the eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness, of aspiration towards it, and of cooperation with it.
Aspiration | Cooperation | Energy | Eternal | Good | Nothing | Prayer | Aspiration |
Meridel Le Sueur, born Meridel Wharton
What happens in a strike happens not to one person alone.... It is a crisis with meaning and potency for all and prophetic of a future. The elements in crisis are the same, there is a fermentation that is identical. The elements are these: a body of men, women and children, hungry; an organization of feudal employers out to break the back of unionization; and the government Labor Board sent to "negotiate" between this hunger and this greed.
Body | Government | Hunger | Labor | Meaning | Organization | Government | Crisis |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
Without respect, the subtle alchemy that binds an organization or that serves as the impetus for a business transaction would dissolve into mutual suspicion and hostility.
Alchemy | Business | Organization | Suspicion | Business |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
An ideal organization is one in which each worker's potentialities find room for expression.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
A paycheck is a sufficient impetus to motivate some employees to do the minimum amount to get by, and for others, the challenge of getting ahead in the organization provides a satisfactory focus for a while. But these incentives alone are rarely strong enough to inspire workers to give their best to their work. For this a vision is needed, an overarching goal that gives meaning to the job, so that an individual can forget himself in the task and experience flow without doubts or regrets. The most important component of such a vision is an ingredient we call soul.
Challenge | Enough | Experience | Focus | Important | Individual | Meaning | Organization | Vision |
Mikhail Gorbachev, fully Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations. Peace is movement towards globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now. Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences. And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.
Absence | Cooperation | Creativity | Means | Peace | Unity |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace.
Coercion | Cooperation |