This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. W. Fulbright, fully James William Fulbright
We must dare to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about the 'unthinkable things' because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.
Action | Dissent | Fear | Thinking | World | Learn | Think |
One’s true happiness depends more upon one’s own judgment of one’s self, or a consciousness of rectitude in action and intention, and the approbation of those few, who judge impartially, than upon the applause of the unthinking, undiscerning multitude, who are apt to cry Hosanna today, and tomorrow, Crucify him.
Action | Applause | Consciousness | Intention | Judgment | Self | Tomorrow | Happiness |
B. H. Liddell Hart, fully Captain B. H. Liddell
For collective action it suffices if the mass can be managed; collective growth is only possible through the freedom and enlargement of individual minds.
Action | Freedom | Growth | Individual |
A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought: to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does… Through the ecstasy of deeds he learns to be certain of the presence of God.
Action | Deeds | Ecstasy | God | Order | Thought | Deeds | Understand |
David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
Nothing in nature needs to do anything; all merely appears to be becoming that which it is. There is no doer of actions; the actions are the doer. One sees potentiality actualizing. In duality, there is a `this’ (me) that is imagined to be the `cause’ of `that’ (action). In Reality, the action and self are one and the same. There is no thinker separate from the thoughts. It is the thoughts themselves that are the only thinker of the moment; they are not different or separate.
Action | Cause | Duality | Nature | Nothing | Reality | Self |
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative [or creation] there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too... Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.
Action | Chance | Grace | Ideas | Ignorance | Initiative | Magic | Power | Providence | Truth | Think |
Bruce Jenner, fully William Bruce Jenner
People are either driven to action or complacency, mission or rust. You’re either participating in the Game of Life or you’re watching it from the grandstands. Herein lies a crucial difference. A champion plays the game: a spectator observes, criticizes and never really gets to live. A champion knows what he or she wants and goes after it with carefully calculated goals and no-holds-barred action. A spectator feels that his or her life is not their own. They let others dictate their destiny. They become victims of life instead of masters of it.”
Action | Complacency | Destiny | Goals | Life | Life | Mission | People | Wants |
He must summon his people to be with him – yet stand above, not squat beside them. He must question his own wisdom and judgment – but not too severely. He must hear the opinions and heed the powers of others – but not too abjectly. He must appease the doubts of his critic and assuage the hurts of the adversary – sometimes. He must ignore their views and achieve their defeat – sometimes… He must respect action – without becoming intoxicated with his own. He must have a sense of purpose inspiring him to magnify the trivial event to serve his distant aim – and to grasp the thorniest crisis as if it were the merest nettle. He must be pragmatic, calculating, and earthbound – and still know when to spurn the arithmetic of expediency for the act of brave imagination, the sublime gamble with no hope other than the boldness of his vision
Action | Boldness | Critic | Defeat | Hope | Imagination | Judgment | People | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Respect | Sense | Vision | Wisdom | Respect | Crisis |
Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action for all eternity.
There are only three things to teach: Simplicity, patience, and compassion. Simplicity in action and thoughts, will return you to the source of your being. Patience with friends and enemies alike, will give you harmony with the way things are. Compassion with yourself, will settle all the differences between you and other beings in the world.
Action | Compassion | Harmony | Patience | Simplicity | Teach | Will | World | Friends |
If things are ever to move upward, someone must be ready to take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try nonresistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. When they do succeed, they are far more powerfully successful than force or worldly prudence. Force destroys enemies; and the best that can be said of prudence is that it keeps what we already have in safety. But nonresistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends; and charity regenerates its objects.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so that it can no longer be ignored.
Marriage is the only sacrament which transforms a human action into an instrument of the divine action, using a human act which up to then had been used for a natural end.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The chaff from winnowing will blind a man’s eyes so that he cannot tell the points of the compass. Mosquitoes will keep a man awake all night with their biting. And just in the same way this talk of charity and duty to one’s neighbor drives me nearly crazy. Sir! strive to keep the world to its own simplicity. And as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so let virtue establish itself. Wherefore such undue energy, as though searching for a fugitive with a big drum?
Charity | Duty | Energy | Man | Simplicity | Virtue | Virtue | Will | World |