This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
Let us not get so busy or live so fast that we can't listen to the music of the meadow or the symphony that glorifies the forest. Some things in the world are far more important than wealth; one of them is the ability to enjoy simple things.
Daniel Boorstin, fully Daniel Joseph Boorstin
In competition for prestige it seems only sensible to try to perfect our image rather than ourselves. That seems the most economical, direct way to produce the desired result. Accustomed to live in a world of pseudo-events, celebrities, dissolving forms, and shadowy but overshadowing images, we mistake our shadows for ourselves. To us they seem more real than the reality.
Competition | Events | Mistake | Reality | World |
The author of genius does keep till his last breath the spontaneity, the ready sensitiveness, of a child, the "innocence of eye" that means so much to the painter, the ability to respond freshly and quickly to new scenes, and to old scenes as though they were new; to see traits and characteristics as though each were new-minted from the hand of God instead of sorting them quickly into dusty categories and pigeon-holing them without wonder or surprise; to feel situations so immediately and keenly that the word "trite" has hardly any meaning for him; and always to see "the correspondences between things" of which Aristotle spoke two thousand years ago.
Ability | Genius | God | Innocence | Meaning | Means | Wonder | God | Old |
Dr. Seuss, pen name for Theodore Seuss Geisel
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Ability |
In misfortune we often mistake dejection for constancy; we bear it without daring to look on it; like cowards, who suffer themselves to be murdered without resistance.
Constancy | Daring | Dejection | Misfortune | Mistake | Misfortune |
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
You must not retain for one instant any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do the job… This matter frequently calls for more courage than any other thing you will have to do, but I expect you to be perfectly cold-blooded about it.
The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
Ability | Action | Ideas | Men | Motives | Passion | People | Society | Thought | Society | Govern | Thought |
It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.
Ability |
The true test of being comfortable with someone else is the ability to share silence.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Common Sense | Method | Mistake | Sense | Temper |
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament is in discourse; and ability is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and, perhaps, judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels and the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned.
The art of archery is not an athletic ability mastered more or less through primarily physical practice, but rather a skill with its origin in mental exercise and with its object consisting in mentally hitting the mark. Therefore, the archer is basically aiming himself. Through this, perhaps, he will succeed in hitting the target - his essential self.
Ability | Art | Object | Practice | Self | Skill | Will | Art |
To laugh with others is one of life's great pleasures. To be laughed at by others is one of life's great hurts.