This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign asters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law. Systems which attempt to question it deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.
Darkness | Effort | Law | Light | Man | Mankind | Nature | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Question | Reality | Reason | Right | Sense | System | Will | Words | Wrong | Govern |
Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, Pain and Pleasure - they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think; every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
Effort | Government | Mankind | Nature | Pain | Pleasure | Will | Government | Govern |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
The culture of organization runs strongly to the shifting of problems to others – to an escape from personal mental effort and responsibility. This, in turns, becomes the larger public attitude. It is for others to do the worrying, take the action. In the world of the great organization, problems are not solved but passed on. And there is a further effect. The delegation process just cited adds ineluctably to the layers of command and to the prestige associated with command. That prestige is regularly measured by the number of individual subordinates.
Action | Culture | Effort | Individual | Organization | Problems | Public | Responsibility | World |
There are three material things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one “knows how to live” till he has got them. These are pure air, water and earth. There are three immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them also. These are admiration, hope and love. Admiration - the power of discerning and taking delight in what is beautiful in visible form and lovely in human character; and, necessarily, striving to produce what is beautiful in form and to become what is lovely in character. Hope - the recognition, by true foresight, of better things to be reached hereafter, whether by ourselves or others; necessarily issuing in the straightforward and undisappointable effort to advance, according to our proper power, the gaining of them. Love - both of family and neighbor, faithful and satisfied.
Admiration | Better | Character | Earth | Effort | Family | Foresight | Hope | Life | Life | Love | Power |
[Human progress] unites the person and the community; and one is not less necessary than the other. For without the social process the individual effort would be lost, and without the individual bid for freedom society would be curbed and confined, as most historic civilizations have in fact been confined, by its very success.
Effort | Freedom | Individual | Progress | Society | Success | Society |
The political unification of mankind cannot be realistically conceived except as part of [the] effort at self-transformation.
Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
The fact is that life has become a sweepstake. Millions of people who have lost the sense of being able to make anything of the collective effort of shaping their economic society, now expect fortune to descend like the pie from the sky.
The perception of one’s fellow man as a whole, as a unity, as a unique – even if his wholeness, unity, and uniqueness are only partly developed, as is usually the case – is opposed in our time by almost everything that is commonly understood as specifically modern. In our time there predominates an analytical, reductive, and deriving look between man and man. This look is analytical, or rather pseudo-analytical, since it treats the whole being as put together and therefore able to be taken apart… An effort is being made today radically to destroy the mystery between man and man. The personal life, the ever-near mystery, once the source of the stillest enthusiasms, is leveled down.
Destroy | Effort | Life | Life | Man | Mystery | Perception | Time | Unique | Unity | Wholeness |
The amount of effort put into a campaign by a worker expands in proportion to the personal benefits that he will derive from his party's victory.
Sharpen your thinking about goal setting. Be realistic about the amount of time and effort that might be necessary. Make a commitment to excellence. Learn to distinguish between a goal and a wish. Prepare for ultimate goals by achieving your interim goals. Choose goals that will benefit others as well as yourself.
Commitment | Distinguish | Effort | Excellence | Goals | Thinking | Time | Will | Learn |
There is a soul at the center of nature, and over the will of every man... Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.
Contentment | Effort | Man | Nature | Power | Right | Soul | Truth | Will | Wisdom |
The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word... Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full center of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.
Contentment | Effort | Faith | Guidance | Life | Life | Listening | Need | Power | Right | Teach | Truth | Wisdom | Guidance |
Roger Babson, fully Roger Ward Babson
Experience has taught me that financial success, job success and happiness in human relations are, in the main, the result of (a) physical well-being; (b) constant effort to develop one's personal assets; (c) setting up and working toward a series of life goals; (d) allowing time for meditation and spiritual regeneration.
Effort | Experience | Goals | Life | Life | Meditation | Success | Time | Happiness |