This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
First, all relationships are with yourself-and sometimes they involve other people. Second, the most important relationship in your life - the one you have, like it or not, until the day you die - is with yourself.
Day | Important | Life | Life | Relationship |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
The State idea means something quite different from the idea of government. It not only includes the existence of a power situated above society, but also of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies. It implies some new relationships between members of society which did not exist before the formation of the State. A whole mechanism of legislation and of policing has to be developed in order to subject some classes to the domination of others.
Existence | Life | Life | Means | Order | Power | Society | Society |
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
The main uniform effect of calamities upon the political and social structure of society is an expansion of governmental regulation, regimentation, and control of social relationships and a decrease in the regulation and management of social relationships by individuals and private groups. The expansion of governmental control and regulation assumes a variety of forms, embracing socialistic or communistic totalitarianism, fascist totalitarianism, monarchial autocracy, and theocracy. Now it is effected by a revolutionary regime, now by a counterrevolutionary regime; now by a military dictatorship, now by a dictatorship, now by a dictatorial bureaucracy. From both the quantitative and the qualitative point of view, such an expansion of governmental control means a decrease of freedom, a curtailment of the autonomy of individuals and private groups in the regulation and management of their individual behavior and their social relationships, the decline of constitutional and democratic institutions.
Behavior | Control | Individual | Means | Regulation | Society | Society |
Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
In general, people have not realized that one can express our very essence through neutral constructive elements; that is to say, we can express the essence of art. The essence of art of course in not often sought. As a rule, individualist human nature is so predominant, that the expression of the essence of art through a rhythm of lines, colors, and relationships appears insufficient. Recently, even a great artist has declared that ‘complete indifference to the subject leads to an incomplete form of art.’ But everybody agrees that art is only a problem of plastics. What good then is a subject? It is to be understand that one would need a subject to expound something named ‘Spiritual riches, human sentiments and thoughts.’ Obviously, all this is individual and needs particular forms. But at the root of these sentiments and thoughts there is one thought and one sentiment: those do not easily define themselves and have no need of analogous forms in which to express themselves. It is here that neutral plastic means are demanded. For pure art then, the subject can never be an additional value, it is the line, the color, and their relations which must ‘bring into play the whole sensual and intellectual register of the inner life…,’ not the subject. Both in abstract art and in naturalistic art color expresses itself ‘in accordance with the form by which it is determined,’ and in all art it is the artists task to make forms and colors living and capable of arousing emotion. If he makes art into an ‘algebraic equation’ that is no argument against the art, it only proves that he is not an artist.
Abstract | Argument | Art | Good | Human nature | Indifference | Individual | Means | Nature | Need | People | Play | Thought | Art | Thought | Understand |
Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
Every true artist has been inspired more by the beauty of lines and color and the relationships between them than by the concrete subject of the picture.
Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
The colored planes, as much by position and dimension as by the greater value given to color, plastically express only relationships and not forms.
Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL
Ours will be the task of defining and explaining the notions of the most important truths… as well as that of leading back to the rule and straight path of honesty both in public and in private life, in the social and political spheres, all men and, indeed, each and every one of them, those who must obey as well as those whose duty is to command, for they are all sons of the same Father Who is in Heaven. We are also quite conscious of the fact that some will be shocked in hearing Us mention that We will, through necessity, concern Ourselves with politics. But anyone seeking to judge fairly will be quick to understand that the Sovereign Pontiff, who has been invested with the Supreme Magisterium, has no right whatsoever of divorcing questions relating to politics from the field of Faith and Morals. Moreover, in his capacity as chief and sovereign guide of that perfect society which is the Catholic Church, a society made up of men and also set up amongst men, he can only wish to foster and entertain close relationships with [all] heads of countries and members of governments if he wishes to see all the countries of the world protect their Catholic citizens' liberty and security.
Capacity | Duty | Faith | Father | Honesty | Important | Liberty | Men | Politics | Public | Right | Rule | Society | Will | Wishes | World | Society | Understand |
After many years of working with and listening to American adolescents, I don't believe they are ready for sex or its potential consequences--parenthood, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases--and I think we need to do everything in our power to discourage sexual activity and encourage abstinence. Young people can learn to value the intimacy of friendships with the opposite sex as well as their own, can enjoy being in groups as well as couples. Those kinds of relationships need adult support, including the time it takes to organize gatherings for kids, instead of turning them loose in malls, video arcades, or the streets. Homes, schools, churches, and communities should provide havens for kids who want an alternative. These same entities have to pitch in when it comes to educating kids about sex.
Listening | Need | People | Power | Time | Learn | Think | Value |
When I am talking about It Takes a Village, I'm obviously not talking just about or even primarily about geographical villages any longer, but about the network of relationships and values that do connect us and binds us together.
Talking |
Parenthood has the power to redefine every aspect of life - marriage, work, relationships with family and friends. Those helpless bundles of power and promise that come into our world show us our true selves- who we are, who we are not, who we wish we could be.
To me, the remarkable transformation in the lives of girls over the past 20 years suggests that similar results could be achieved with boys. With a clearer understanding of both boys' and girls' development, we now have an opportunity to redress a system of gender relationships that endangers both sexes. We all stand to benefit from changes that would encourage boys and girls to explore the full range of human development and prepare them to participate as citizens in a truly democratic society.
Boys | Opportunity | Past | System | Understanding |
For some, the trouble boys are having with school becomes grounds for reinstituting traditional codes of manhood, including a return to the patriarchal family. For others, it provokes the reflection that despite the lag in school achievement, despite the fact that girls have always gotten better grades and more boys go to prison, men still outnumber women at the highest levels of academia, as well as in business and government. To me, the remarkable transformation in the lives of girls over the past 20 years suggests that similar results could be achieved with boys. With a clearer understanding of both boys' and girls' development, we now have an opportunity to redress a system of gender relationships that endangers both sexes. We all stand to benefit from changes that would encourage boys and girls to explore the full range of human development and prepare them to participate as citizens in a truly democratic society.
Better | Boys | Business | Men | Opportunity | Past | Reflection | System | Understanding | Trouble | Business |
Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all.
Discovery | Experiment | Invention | Science | System | Discovery |
Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
Topology provides the synergetic means of ascertaining the values of any system of experiences. Topology is the science of fundamental pattern and structural relationships of event constellations.
Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.
Experience | Will | Inertia | Think |
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
For it is not simply because of mere sluggishness alone that human relationships repeat themselves from case to case in such unspeakably monotonous and unrefreshed ways; there is also a certain shyness for new, unforeseeable experiences generally, because one doesn't feel up to them. But only for the one who is on the lookout for everything, who excludes nothing not even the most enigmatic, will the relationship to another become something alive and speak to the whole potential of one's existence.
Nothing | Relationship | Will |
Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West
International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.
Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
All things need watching, working at, caring for and marriage is no exception. Marriage is not something to be treated indifferently, or abused or something that simply takes care of itself. Nothing neglected will remain as it was or is, or will fail to deteriorate. All things need attention care and concern and especially so in this most sensitive of all relationships of life.
Leaders have the courage to face inevitable conflict openly and head on. Whenever strong willed people interact on a frequent basis, there will be occasional disagreements and conflict. The effective leader recognizes this as a fact of life and does not shy away from conflict because of the tension and stress involved.
Adaptability | Authority | Capacity | Creativity |