This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John W. Gardner, fully John William Gardner
Creativity requires the freedom to consider "unthinkable" alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organization, every society is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned, least of all by those most intimately involved.
Creativity | Doubt | Freedom | Organization | Society | Worth | Society |
So natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care bout, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.
Care | Freedom | Indifference | Intolerance | Mankind | Peace |
Your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
Freedom |
[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 |
Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
Consciousness | Freedom | Necessity |
Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Evil | Experience | Freedom | Government | Liberty | Meaning | Men | Teach | Understanding | Zeal |
Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties… They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak
Courage | Freedom | Liberty | Means | Men | Will | Happiness | Think |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Most of us believe that the freedom and power of adulthood is our due, but we have little taste for adult responsibility and self-discipline.
Discipline | Freedom | Little | Power | Responsibility | Self | Taste |
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism - The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in. The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what is used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.
Character | Control | Cost | Danger | Freedom of speech | Freedom | People | Principles | Protest | Reputation | Right | Rights | Speech | Thought | Words | Danger | Afraid | Guilty | Thought |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
Longevity is the result of freedom from grief and worry.
We do not make use of our freedom. We have given away the fundamental freedom to visualize and shape our world. We allow actors, advertisers and politicians to dream for us. And a culture that does not dream is not free.
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.
Freedom |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
The most learned men have told us that only the wise man is free. What is freedom but the ability to live as one will? The man who lives as he wills is none other than the one who strives for the right, who does his duty, who plans his life with forethought, and who obeys the laws because he knows it is good for him, and not out of fear. Everything he says, does, or thinks is spontaneous and free. His tasks and conduct begin and end in himself, because nothing has so much influence over him as his own counsel and decision. Even the supreme power of fortune is submissive to him. The wise poet has reminded us that fortune is molded for each man by the manner of his life. Only the wise man does nothing against his will, or with regret and by compulsion. Thought this truth deserves to be discussed at greater length, it is nevertheless proverbial that no one is free except the wise. Evil men are nothing but slaves.
Ability | Conduct | Counsel | Decision | Duty | Evil | Fear | Forethought | Fortune | Freedom | Good | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Men | Nothing | Power | Regret | Right | Thought | Truth | Will | Wills | Wise | Counsel | Thought |