This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Politics is the practical exercise of the art of self-government, and somebody must attend to it if we are to have self-government; somebody must study it, and learn the art, and exercise patience and sympathy and skill to bring the multitude of opinions and wishes of self-governing people into such order that some prevailing opinion may be expressed and peaceably accepted. Otherwise, confusion will result either in dictatorship or anarchy. The principal ground of reproach against any American citizen should be that he is not a politician. Everyone ought to be, as Lincoln was.
Government | Important | Peace | People | Rights | Government |
If you ask for the purpose or goal of society as a whole or of an individual taken as a whole the question loses its meaning. This is, of course, even more so if you ask the purpose or meaning of nature in general. For in those cases it seems quite arbitrary if not unreasonable to assume somebody whose desires are connected with the happenings.
Action | Consequences | Desire | Earnestness | Fulfillment | Individual | Life | Life | Mankind | Opinion | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Struggle |
The mere assemblage of peace loving people to interchange convincing reasons for their common faith, mere exhortation and argument to the public in favor of peace in general fall short of the mark.
Civilization | Force | Progress | Public | Theoretical |
I became one of those annoying people who always say Ciao! Only I was extra annoying, since I would always explain where the word ciao comes from. (If you must know, it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval Venetians as an intimate salutation: Sono il suo schiavo! Meaning: I am your slave!) Just speaking these words made me feel sexy and happy. My divorce lawyer told me not to worry; she said she had one client (Korean by heritage) who, after a yucky divorce, legally changed her name to something Italian, just to feel sexy and happy again.
Balance | Behavior | Consequences | Depression | Ends | Family | Grief | Need | Panic | People | Will |
The Buddha taught that all human suffering is rooted in desire. Don't we all know this to be true? Any of us who have ever desired something and then didn't get it (or, worse, got it and subsequently lost it) know full well the suffering of which the Buddah spoke. Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody - really want him - it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause you lacerating injury. All you know is that you must obtain the object of your desire by any means necessary, and then never be parted. All you can think about is your beloved. Lost in such primal urgency, you no longer completely own yourself. You have become an indentured servant to your own yearnings.
When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brain of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of 'thus saith the Lord.
As women are taking an active part in pressing on the consideration of Congress many narrow sectarian measures, such as more rigid Sunday laws, the stopping of travel, the distribution of the mail on that day, and the introduction of the name of God into the Constitution; and as this action on the part of some women is used as an argument for the disfranchisement of all, I hope this convention will declare that the Woman Suffrage Association is opposed to all union of Church and State, and pledges itself as far as possible to maintain the secular nature of our Government.
The appetite for torment is for some what the lure of gain is for others.
There are eyes which can no longer learn anything from the sun, and souls afflicted by nights from which they will never recover.
Emil G. Hirsch, fully Emil Gustav Hirsch
The doctrine of man as creator, as I can easily show to such as can think philosophically, necessarily leads to an assumption of a greater creative force immanent in nature. . . . Human life, weak as it is, shadowlike as undoubtedly it is, fleet-footed as it is, gains strength in the thought that the All-life lives and supports the individual life, which is not wiped away as the little ripplets are in the broader stream.
Civilization | Offense | Sin | World |
The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution — particularly the Socialist idea — is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship is replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat— or by that of its advance guard,the Communist Party. Lenin takes the seat of the Romanovs, the Imperial Cabinet is rechristened Soviet of People's Commissars, Trotsky is appointed Minister of War, and a labourer becomes the Military Governor General of Moscow. That is, in essence, the Bolshevik conception of revolution, as translated into actual practice.
Absurd | Life | Life | Love | Man | Right | Rights | Will | Woman |
Many people look upon change with dread and foreboding. But for those on the spiritual path—for those who believe in God and the power of prayer—change is a fuller expression of life. When a problem or condition arises in your life that indicates a change, rely upon God, and realize that it is not so much that a door has closed on a chapter of your life, but rather that a door has opened on new and more interesting things.
Freedom | Law | Life | Life | Past | Position | Power | Prosperity | Rights |
There is a place for analysis, but it is apt to be quite fatal in prayer and meditation. Do not dissect the love of God, but feel it. Do not dissect divine intelligence, but realize it. Do not wonder how God can possibly solve this problem, but just watch Him do it in His own way—and He will if you will give Him a chance. You know that God is Love. So go ahead on that, and do not get theoretical about it.
Civilization | Human race | Race | World |
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
A material thing refers t o a double relativity. On the one hand, a thing is relative to consciousness - to say that it exists is to say that it meets consciousness. On the other hand, since the sequence of subjective phenomena is never completed, existence remains relative to the degree of completion of the sequence of 'phenomena', and further experience may, in principle, falsify and reduce to a hallucination what had seemed to be acquired by a preceding perception.
Being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker anymore than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
It is... in the hour of his first success, that the most subtle temptation comes to the artist, to let the genius that created his public be directed by that public. Once he has won them, they always keep asking for the identical pleasure they experienced the first time. So the painter sells himself to the dealer who is certain he can place any number of copies of the same work with his customers... The novelist rewrites the same novel. The musician repeats the same songs. The artist... becomes his own disciple and calls upon his talent to exploit the creations of his genius.