This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.
Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.
Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.
Ideals | Justice | Opportunity |
Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers
Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.
Freedom is often for man no more than his opportunity to choose his own servitude.
Man | Opportunity |
Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.
Good | Opportunity | Strength |
Awareness is observation without choice, condemnation, or justification. Awareness is silent observation from which there arises understanding without the experiencer and the experienced. In this awareness, which is passive, the problem or the cause is given an opportunity to unfold itself and so give its full significance. In awareness there is no end in view to be gained, and there is no becoming, the 'me' and the 'mine' not being given the continuity.
Awareness | Cause | Observation | Opportunity | Understanding | Awareness |
Isak Dinesen, pen name of Baroness Karen Blixen
Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you.
Opportunity | People |
The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Ability | Better | Birth | Circumstances | Land | Life | Life | Man | Opportunity | Order | Woman |
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires. Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own furtive of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit; bad thoughts, bad fruit.
Good | Opportunity | Soul |
Some tension is necessary for the soul to grow, and we can put that tension to good use. We can look for every opportunity to give and receive love, to appreciate nature, to heal our wounds and the wounds of others, to forgive, and to serve.
Good | Opportunity | Receive | Soul |
To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.
John D. Rockefeller, fully John Davidson Rockefeller I
I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.
Dignity | Man | Opportunity | World |
There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.
Liberty | Opinion | Opportunity | Purpose | Purpose | Truth |
Joost Meerloo. fully Joost Abraham Maurits Meerlo
He who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind. Repeat mechanically your assumptions and suggestions, diminish the opportunity for communicating dissent and opposition. This is the formula for political conditioning of the masses.
Dissent | Opportunity | Words |
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.
Opportunity | Reward | Work |
L. P. Jacks, fully Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.