This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin the education of her child which she told him was then four years old. “madam,” was the reply, “you have lose three years already. From the very first smile that gleams over the infant’s cheek, your opportunity begins.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!
Alfred Zimmern, fully Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern
All true educators since the time of Socrates and Plato have agreed that the primary objective of education is the attainment of inner harmony, or, to put it into more up-to-date language, the integration of the personality. Without such an integration learning is no more than a collection of scraps, and the accumulation of knowledge becomes a danger to mental health.
Attainment | Danger | Education | Harmony | Health | Integration | Knowledge | Language | Learning | Personality | Time | Wisdom | Danger |
Education today, more than ever before, must see clearly the dual objectives: education for living and education for making a living.
Education | Objectives | Wisdom |
It is counterproductive to assume we have created every misfortune in our life, as if we had made a conscious intention to do so. That kind of thinking leads to guilt and despair. Nevertheless, a sincere willingness to acknowledge that we have certain beliefs that have created our situation will enrich our approach to working through obstacles.
Despair | Guilt | Intention | Life | Life | Misfortune | Thinking | Will | Misfortune |
Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get alone without education. Education appears to be the thing that enables a man to get alone without the use of his intelligence.
Education | Intelligence | Man | Wisdom |
To live by the code of “do as you please regardless” is to become a prisoner of your own moral corruption. It is to be troubled by guilt and tormented by the inconsistency of living contrary to the demands of your own conscience and moral nature. You simply cannot be satisfied while ignoring any part of your nature.
Conscience | Corruption | Guilt | Inconsistency | Nature |
César Chávez, fully César Estrada Chávez
The end of all education should surely be service to others. We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about the progress and prosperity of our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others for their sake and for our own.
Achievement | Education | Enough | Progress | Prosperity | Service |
The apportioning of blame [is] the means by which society obtains a modicum of revenge for the wrong it has suffered, expiates its own guilt for such responsibility as it may have had for the event in question, and finally seeks to prevent a repetition of the disaster.
Blame | Guilt | Means | Question | Responsibility | Revenge | Society | Wrong | Society |
At the bottom, people tend to believe that class is defined by the amount of money you have. In the middle, people grant that money has something to do with it, but think education and the kind of work you do almost equally important. Nearer the top, people perceive that taste, values, ideas, style, and behavior are indispensable criteria of class, regardless of money or occupation or education.
Behavior | Education | Ideas | Important | Indispensable | Money | Occupation | People | Style | Taste | Work | Think |
Moral ambiguity creates mental cramps of various sorts, which lead to reflection, discussion, and argument… Morality resists theoretical unification under either a set of special-purpose rules or single general-purpose rule or principle, such as the categorical imperative or the principle of unity. If this is right, and if it is right because the ends of moral life are plural and heterogeneous in kind and because our practices of moral education rightly reflect this, then we have some greater purchase on why the project of finding a single theoretically satisfying moral theory has failed.
Ambiguity | Argument | Discussion | Education | Ends | Life | Life | Morality | Purpose | Purpose | Reflection | Right | Rule | Unity | Theoretical |
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth.