This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God's grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.
Truth |
Lord Dunsany, fully Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany
A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.
Man |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.
It is the small temptations which undermine integrity unless we watch and pray and never think them too trivial to be resisted.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley
You have not converted a man, because you have silenced him... The small reform may become the enemy of the great one... The most frightful idea that has ever corroded human nature-the idea of eternal punishment.
Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley
The small reform may become the enemy of the great one.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
How small a thought it takes to fill a life.
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
The person with a secular mentality feels himself to be the center of the universe. Yet he is likely to suffer from a sense of meaninglessness and insignificance because he knows he’s but one human among five billion others - all feeling themselves to be the center of things - scratching out an existence on the surface of a medium-sized planet circling a small star among countless stars in a galaxy lost among countless galaxies. The person with the sacred mentality, on the other hand, does not feel herself to be the center of the universe. She considers the Center to be elsewhere and other. Yet she is unlikely to feel lost or insignificant precisely because she draws her significance and meaning from her relationship, her connection, with that center, that Other.
Existence | Insignificance | Meaning | Sacred | Sense |
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.
Ability | Cause | Civilization | Future | Ideas | Influence | Mankind | Means | Opinion | People | Principles | Public | Right | Sound | Will | Winning |
Many social justice or social activist movements have been rooted in a position. A position is usually against something. Any position will call up its opposition. If I say up, it generates down. If I say right, it really creates left. If I say good, it creates bad. So a position creates its opposition. A stand is something quite distinct from that.
M. Stanton Evans, fully Medford Stanton Evans
Evans’ Law: “Whenever ‘one of our people’ reaches a position of power where he can do us some good, he ceases to be ‘one of our people.’”
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, born Mahesh Prasad Varma
The whole purpose of life is to gain enlightenment. Nothing else is significant compared to that completely natural, exalted state of consciousness. So always strive for that. Set your life around that goal. Don't get caught up in small things, and then it will be yours.