This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
I only study the things I like; I apply my mind only to matters that interest me. They'll be useful—or useless—to me or to others in due course, I'll be given—or not given—the opportunity of benefiting from what I've learned. In any case, I'll have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of doing things I like doing and following my own inclinations.
Mind | Opportunity | Study | Following |
For a long time then, I reflected on this confusion in the astronomical traditions concerning the derivation of the motions of the universe's spheres. I began to be annoyed that the movements of the world machine, created for our sake by the best and most systematic Artisan of all, were not understood with greater certainty by the philosophers, who otherwise examined so precisely the most insignificant trifles of this world. For this reason I undertook the task of rereading the works of all the philosophers which I could obtain to learn whether anyone had ever proposed other motions of the universe's spheres than those expounded by the teachers of astronomy in the schools. And in fact I found in Cicero that Hicetas supposed the earth to move. Later I also discovered in Plutarch that certain others were of this opinion. . . . Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth.
Earth | Opportunity | Reason | Time | Trifles | World | Learn |
If you do not pour water on your plant, what will happen? It will slowly wither and die. Our habits will also slowly wither and die away if we do not give them an opportunity to manifest. You need not fight to stop a habit. Just don’t give it an opportunity to repeat itself.
Need | Opportunity | Will |
The world does not owe men a living, but business, if it is to fulfill its ideal, owes men an opportunity to earn a living.
Men | Opportunity | World |
Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.
Faith | Opportunity |
Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend
Progress was often achieved by a "criticism from the past"... After Aristotle and Ptolemy, the idea that the earth moves - that strange, ancient, and "entirely ridiculous", Pythagorean view was thrown on the rubbish heap of history, only to be revived by Copernicus and to be forged by him into a weapon for the defeat of its defeaters. The Hermetic writings played an important part in this revival, which is still not sufficiently understood, and they were studied with care by the great Newton himself. Such developments are not surprising. No idea is ever examined in all its ramifications and no view is ever given all the chances it deserves. Theories are abandoned and superseded by more fashionable accounts long before they have had an opportunity to show their virtues. Besides, ancient doctrines and "primitive" myths appear strange and nonsensical only because their scientific content is either not known, or is distorted by philologists or anthropologists unfamiliar with the simplest physical, medical or astronomical knowledge.
Care | Defeat | Earth | Important | Opportunity | Theories |
While both humanization and dehumanization are real alternatives [today], only the first is man’s vocation. This vocation is constantly negated, yet it is affirmed by that very negation. It is thwarted by injustice, exploitation, oppression and the violence of the oppressors; it is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for freedom and justice, and by their struggle to recover their lost humanity... This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity,” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity,” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. This is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source.
Deference | Dehumanization | Freedom | Generosity | Injustice | Injustice | Opportunity | Oppression | Order | Power | Strength | Struggle | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Will |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The first – and usually the best – opportunity for successful change is to exploit one’s own successes and build on them. Problems cannot be ignored. And serious problems have to be taken care of. But to be change leaders, enterprises have to focus on opportunities. They have to starve problems and feed opportunities.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The real development I've seen of people in organizations, especially in big ones, comes from their being volunteers in a nonprofit organization -- where you have responsibility, you see results, and you quickly learn what your values are. There is no better way to understand your strengths and discover where you belong than to volunteer in a nonprofit. That is probably the great opportunity for the social sector -- and especially in its relationship to business.
Better | Opportunity | Organization | People | Relationship | Learn | Understand |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The proper social responsibility of business is to tame the dragon–that is, to turn a social problem into economic opportunity and economic benefit, into productive capacity, into human competence, into well-paid jobs, and into wealth.
Business | Opportunity | Responsibility | Business |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.
Knowledge | Opportunity |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. It is capable of being presented as a discipline, capable of being learned, capable of being practiced. Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation, the changes and their symptoms that indicate opportunities for successful innovation. And they need to know and to apply the principles of successful innovation.
Business | Change | Exploit | Means | Need | Opportunity | Principles | Search | Business |
Percy W. Bridgman, fully Percy Williams Bridgman
The result is that a generation of physicists is growing up who have never exercised any particular degree of individual initiative, who have had no opportunity to experience its satisfactions or its possibilities, and who regard cooperative work in large teams as the normal thing. It is a natural corollary for them to feel that the objectives of these large teams must be something of large social significance.
Experience | Individual | Objectives | Opportunity | Regard | Work |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.
May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.
Opportunity | Right | Think |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
A time of turbulence is one of great opportunity for those who can understand, accept, and exploit the new realities. One constant theme is, therefore, the need for the decision maker in the individual enterprise to face up to reality and resist the temptation of what "everybody knows," the temptations of the certainties of yesterday, which are about to become of deleterious superstitions of tomorrow. To manage in turbulent times, therefore, means to face up to the new realities. It means starting with the question: "What is the world really like?" rather than the assertions or assumptions that made sense only a few years ago.
Decision | Exploit | Individual | Means | Need | Opportunity | Reality | Sense | Temptation | Time | World | Temptation |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Ideas are somewhat like babies--they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company executives do not say, "This is a damn-fool idea." Instead they ask, "What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?"
Opportunity | Promise |
There is a glass called opportunity all pregnant with bright prophecies, if man but read at the propitious moment. But,--let the fecund second slip and lo! The globule tumbles from his coward's hands splintering a rain of lost forevers upon the sunless stretches of the world.
Man | Opportunity |
Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.
Money | Opportunity | Praise | Success | Wrong |
A Calling is not something you know, when young - that's a fallacy we like to pretend exists. A calling is something you grow into over the course of your life, through trials and errors. Most of those who report "a sense of calling" did not discern that calling when young, and it took them a great deal of hard work to turn their initial opportunity into something satisfying.
Fallacy | Opportunity | Sense | Trials | Work |