This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
Can we establish an ideology, or whatever you like to call it, which insists that the educated have taken upon themselves an obligation and have not simply acquired a "passport to privilege"? Â…It is, you might well say, an elementary matter of justice.
Fanaticism | Means | Objectives |
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
In this communication I wish first to show in the simplest case of the hydrogen atom (nonrelativistic and undistorted) that the usual rates for quantization can be replaced by another requirement, in which mention of ‘whole numbers’ no longer occurs. Instead the integers occur in the same natural way as the integers specifying the number of nodes in a vibrating string. The new conception can be generalized, and I believe it touches the deepest meaning of the quantum rules.
Atheism | Experience | God | Good | Nothing | Pain | Price | Reason | Science | Sense | Space | World | God |
Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel
This demand, that the doctrine of descent should be grounded on experiment, is so perverse and shows such ignorance of the very essence of our theory, that though we have never been surprised at hearing it continually repeated by ignorant laymen, from the lips of a Virchow it has positively astounded us. What can in this case be proved by experiment, and what can experiment prove?
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
Excellent! This is real life, full of antinomies and bigger than logic. Without order, planning, predictability, central control, accountancy, instructions to the underlings, obedience, discipline—without these, nothing fruitful can happen, because everything disintegrates. And yet—without the magnanimity of disorder, the happy abandon, the entrepreneurship venturing into the unknown and incalculable, without the risk and the gamble, the creative imagination rushing in where bureaucratic angels fear to tread—without this, life is a mockery and a disgrace.
Ends | Guidance | Need | People | Science | Wisdom | Work | Guidance | Value |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
To organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence.
Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel
They throw light first of all on the "natural history of creation," then on psychology, or "the science of the soul," and through this on the whole of philosophy. And as the general results of every branch of inquiry are summed up in philosophy, all the sciences come in turn to be touched and influenced more or less by the study of the evolution of man.
Science |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
Nature always… knows where and when to stop. Greater even than the mystery of natural growth is the mystery of the natural cessation of growth. There is measure in all natural things – in their size, speed, or violence. As a result, the system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing.
Distinguish | Economics | Means | Method | Money |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
The exclusion of wisdom from economics, science and technology was something which we could perhaps get away with for a little while, as long as we were relatively unsuccessful; but now that we have become very successful, the problem of spiritual and moral truth moves into the central position.
Experience | Life | Life | Means | Think |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
If aid is given to introduce certain new economic activities, these will be beneficial and viable only if they can be sustained by the already existing educational level of fairly broad groups of people, and they will be truly valuable only if they promote and spread advances in educations, organization, and disciplineÂ…It follow from this that development is not primarily a problem for economists, least of all for economists whose expertise is founded on a crudely materialistic philosophy.
Means | Objectives |
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
Conditions are admittedly such that we can always manage to make doing each concrete individual case without the two different aspects leading to different expectations as to the result of certain experiments. We cannot, however, manage to make do with such old, familiar, and seemingly indispensable terms as "real" or "only possible"; we are never in a position to say what really is or what really happens, but we can only say what will be observed in any concrete individual case. Will we have to be permanently satisfied with this...? On principle, yes. On principle, there is nothing new in the postulate that in the end exact science should aim at nothing more than the description of what can really be observed. The question is only whether from now on we shall have to refrain from tying description to a clear hypothesis about the real nature of the world. There are many who wish to pronounce such abdication even today. But I believe that this means making things a little too easy for oneself.
Knowledge | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Research | Science | Space |
Never mind what is. Imagine it the way you want it to be so that your vibration is a match to your desire. When your vibration is a match to your desire, all things in your experience will gravitate to meet that match every time.
Means | Opposition | Thought | Thought |
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
The very best thing that can happen is that, in despairing of philosophy, they remember that God did not choose to save men through metaphysics, so that its loses be not their loss.
Religion in our day has been captured by the tourist mindset. So many have a “bent” for religious entertainment.
We must extend the boundaries of our lives beyond the dates enclosed by our birth and death and acquire an understanding of God’s way as something larger and more complete than the anecdotes in our private diaries. Otherwise, we will always be “mistaking a sore throat for a descent into hell.”
Desire | Fulfillment | God | Growth | Infancy | Means | God | Blessed |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room.
Means | Mind | Psychology | Will |
This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.
Aims | Art | Awareness | Experience | Individual | Meaning | Means | Mind | Nothing | Power | Practice | Present | Reflection | Spirit | Work | Art | Awareness |