This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Are you good men and true? Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
Any style formed in imitation of some model must be affected and straight-laced.
Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
If our leaders are not worthy, we have the power to elect leaders who are.
Evidence |
The prolonged slavery of women is the darkest page in human history.
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
The oneself does not rest in peace under its identity, and yet its restlessness is not a dialectical scission, nor a process equalizing difference. Its unity is not just added on to some content of ipseity, like the indefinite article which substantifies even verbs, 'nominalizing' and thematizing them. Here the unity precedes every article and every process; it is somehow itself the content.
What we experience is our own concept of things. That is why no two people see quite the same world, and why, in many cases, different people see such different worlds. To put it in another way, we make our own world by the way in which we think; for we really do live in a world of our own thoughts. It follows from this that if our thinking is faulty, our conditions must be faulty too until our thinking is corrected; and that it is useless to try to improve outer things if we leave our own mentality unchanged. Let us suppose for the sake of example that a deaf man goes to Carnegie Hall to a Kreisler recital; and that he happens to be a very foolish person. He sits in the middle of the orchestra and, of course, he does not hear a sound. He is annoyed at this, and changes his ticket for a seat in the first balcony. Here, naturally, he fares no better, and, foolishly thinking that the acoustics of the building are at fault, moves again to the top balcony. Still he cannot hear a sound; so now he goes downstairs again and this time chooses a seat in the very front of the orchestra, only a few yards from the violinist. Of course, he has no better fortune here, and so he stamps out of the theatre in a huff, declaring that evidently Kreisler cannot play, and that the hall is badly designed for music. It is easy for us to see that the trouble is really within himself, and that he cannot remedy matters by merely changing his seat. The only thing for him to do is to overcome his deafness in some way, and then he will enjoy the concert. He must change himself. This parable applies literally to all the problems of life. We see in harmony because of a spiritual lack within ourselves. As we gain greater spiritual understanding, the true Nature of Being opens up. As long as we move from one place to another in search of harmony, or try to bring it about by changing outer things, we are like the foolish man who could not hear Kreisler, and ran about all over the theatre.
Evidence |
Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.
Evidence |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
So let's not mesmerize ourselves by the difficulties, but recover the common-sense view that to work is the most natural thing in the world. Only one must not be blocked by being too damn clever about itÂ…It is a fixation in the mind, that unless you can have the latest you can't do anything at all, and this is the thing that has to be overcome.
What you think about activates a vibration within you.
We live in a time when everyoneÂ’s goal is to be perpetually healthy and constantly happy. If any one of us fails to live up to the standards that are advertised as normative, we are labeled as a problem to be solved, and a host of well-intentioned people rush to try out various cures on us.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.
Evidence | Inconvenient |
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
The average "educated" American has been made to believe that, somehow, the United States must lead the world even though hardly anyone has any information at all about those countries we are meant to lead. Worse, we have very little information about our own country and its past. That is why it is not really possible to compare a writer like Howells with any living American writer because Howells thought that it was a good thing to know as much as possible about his own country as well as other countries while our writers today, in common with the presidents and paint manufacturers, live in a present without past among signs whose meanings are uninterpretable.
Evidence | Inconvenient | Love | Means | Will |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches. And now among other things they are urging you to "cultivate" war gardens, while at the same time a government war report just issued shows that practically 52 percent of the arable, tillable soil is held out of use by the landlords, speculators and profiteers. They themselves do not cultivate the soil. Nor do they allow others to cultivate it. They keep it idle to enrich themselves, to pocket the millions of dollars of unearned increment.
Age | Evidence | Men | Opposition | Rule | Treason | Wonder |
Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money. [Attributed but disavowed by Dirksen]
Crime | Evidence | Innocence | Need | Understand |
Skill or fortune will efface the spots.
Evidence | Feelings | Little | People | Understand |
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Life implies constant activity, and the vital principle was accordingly regarded as something essentially active, constantly controlling and therefore interfering with physical tendencies towards disintegration of organic structure, and building up new organic structure in the process of nutrition and reproduction.