This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to ensure the unhindered development of the individual.
Free and just political institutions are absolutely essential to the progress and development both of the individual and of the race.
Individual | Progress |
William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
Despite the cascade of empirical evidence that even the present scale human economic activity threatens to undermine the integrity of the ecosphere, there is little evidence in the international policy arena that mainstream institutions are seriously willing to consider abandoning perpetual growth machine. Indeed, policy makers generally believe that the Malthusian dilemma and concerns about ‘limits to growth’ have long been put to rest.
If you know what's going on and know how society can be improved and happiness advanced, you tend to focus on how to get things done that will help health, safety, opportunity, justice, accountability of powerful institutions to the people they are supposed to serve.
Riane Eisler, fully Riane Tennenhaus Eisler
For what we are beginning to wake up to today ...is that we have for millennia structured our social institutions and our systems of values precisely in ways that serve to block, distort, and pervert our enormous human yearning for loving connections.
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
If, when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.
Religious liberty is the primary source of our civil liberties, and of all our freedom—free speech, free press and radio, freedom of assembly, and the right of petition. When we explore the history of our institutions we come very soon to the matter of religious belief.
Free press | Freedom | History | Liberty | Right |
John Templeton, fully Sir John Marks Templeton
16 Rules for Investment Success - Invest — don’t trade or speculate. “The stock market is not a casino, but if you move in and out of stocks every time they move a point or two…the market will be your casino.” Remain flexible and open-minded about types of investment. “There are times to buy blue chip stocks, cyclical stocks, corporate bonds, U.S. Treasury instruments, and so on. And there are times to sit on cash…The fact is there is no one kind of investment that is always best.” Buy low. “It is extremely difficult to go against the crowd — to buy when everyone else is selling or has sold, to buy when things look darkest…[but] chances are if you buy what everyone is buying you will do so only after it is already overpriced.” When buying stocks, search for bargains among quality stocks. “Determining quality in a stock is like reviewing a restaurant. You don’t expect it to be 100% perfect, but before it gets three or four stars you want it to be superior.” Diversify. “In stocks and bonds, as in much else, there is safety in numbers.” Do your homework or hire wise experts to help you. “People will tell you: Investigate before you invest. Listen to them. Study companies to learn what makes them successful.” Don’t panic. “The time to sell is before the crash, not after.” Learn from your mistakes. “The only way to avoid mistakes is not to invest — which is the biggest mistake of all…The big difference between those who are successful and those who are not is that successful people learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others.” An investor who has all the answers doesn’t even understand all the questions. “A cocksure approach to investing will lead, probably sooner than later, to disappointment if not outright disaster. Even if we can identify an unchanging handful of investing principles, we cannot apply these rules to an unchanging universe of investments—or an unchanging economic and political environment. Everything is in a constant state of change, and the wise investor recognizes that success is a process of continually seeking answers to new questions.” Do not be fearful or negative too often. “Even in the dark ’70s, many professional money managers — and many individual investors too — made money in stocks, especially those of smaller companies. There will, of course, be corrections, perhaps even crashes. But, over time, our studies indicate stocks do go up…and up…and up.”
Beginning | Better | Cause | Competition | Cost | Credit | Earth | Education | Efficiency | Freedom | Future | Government | Labor | Method | Nations | Opinion | Past | People | Power | Present | Progress | Prosperity | Research | Search | Surplus | Thinking | Time | Will | World | Worth | Government |
Learning to take the heat and receive people's anger in a way that does not undermine your initiative is one of the toughest tasks of leadership. In this sense, exercising leadership might be understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
Perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn’t break and that the enemy’s did.
Under the circumstances you mention I should say that the young lady button workers can organize separately as a union. . . . While this is so it is . . . not the best or wisest step. These men and women all work together and their interests are identical and each one discussing them should discuss them jointly in order to arrive at the best possible conclusions. However as I say if they insist upon organizing a separate union it is better to have them organized in that way than not organized at all.
Government | Nations | Necessity | Peace | Government |
Of course the children of immigrants go to school, and after a few years they become Americanized. But how about the grown-up persons, the adults? Who makes an effort to Americanize them? The labor organization. . . . We have done more to help establish somewhat of a conception of Americanism amongst the emigrants to our country than any other agency of which I know.
Avarice | Children | Defense | Hope | Mankind | Opportunity | Recreation | Wealth | Will |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
Confidence | Hazard | Justice | Wisdom |
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
Let us give to our republic a fourth power with authority over the youth, the hearts of men, public spirit, habits, and republican morality. Let us establish this Areopagus to watch over the education of the children, to supervise national education, to purify whatever may be corrupt in the republic, to denounce ingratitude, coldness in the country's service, egotism, sloth, idleness, and to pass judgment upon the first signs of corruption and pernicious example.
Balance | Government | Justice | Order | Power | System | Will | Government |
Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco
A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.
Abuse | Balance | Death | Desire | Government | Impulse | Individual | Justice | Little | Man | Order | People | Power | Struggle | System | Weakness | Will | Government |