This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Crises and deadlocks, when they occur, have at least this advantage: that they force us to think.
Force |
John Holt, fully John Caldwell Holt
If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him. If, however, we are careful not to push a child beyond the limits of his courage, he is almost sure to get braver.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism... I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.
Force | Individuality | Right |
Civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort.
Civilization | Force | Nothing |
Customs are made for customary circumstances; even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds: they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have not nature to follow. Whatever crushes individuality is despotism. [And] I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.
Choice | Circumstances | Conduct | Conformity | Eccentricity | Force | Individuality | Nature | Peculiarity | People | Pleasure | Right | Taste | Thought | Following | Thought |
One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.
Evolution... is comprehensible only if we admit that it is dominated by a finality, a precise and distant goal... telefinality orients the march of evolution as a whole and has acted, ever since the appearance of life on earth, as a distant directing force tending to develop a being endowed with a conscience, a spiritually and morally perfect being. To attain this goal, this force acts on the laws of the unorganized world in such a way that the normal play of the second law of thermodynamics is always deflected in the same direction.
Appearance | Conscience | Earth | Evolution | Force | Law | Life | Life | Play | World |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
There is a force that somehow pushes us to choose the more difficult path whereby we can transcend the mire and muck into which we are son often born. Despite all that resists the process, we do become better human beings.
Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves. To break our own record, to outstrip our yesterdays by todays, to bear our trials more beautifully than we ever dreamed we could, to whip the tempter inside and out as we never whipped him before, to give as we have never given, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than ever, - this is the true idea, - to get ahead of ourselves... to play a better game of life.
Better | Business | Force | Life | Life | People | Play | Trials | Work | Business |
Love unites the mind more quickly, more closely, and more stably with God than does knowledge, because the force of knowledge consists more in distinction, that of love in union.
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
It is true that water will flow indifferently to east and west, but will it flow equally well up and down? Human nature is disposed toward goodness, just as water tends to flow downwards. There is no water but flows downwards, and no man but shows his tendency to be good. Now, by striking water hard, you may splash it higher than your forehead, an by damming it, you may make it go uphill. But, is that the nature of water? It is external force that causes it to do so. Likewise, if a man is made to do what is not good, his nature is being similarly forced.
I am told that nothing that we do on earth, and nothing that we make on earth, is in as great abundance as force. We now have 30,000 pounds of destructive force, TNT equivalent, available for every human being on earth. We don't have 30,000 pounds of food or medicine or art or books or any of the things that ennoble life, but we have 30,000 pounds of instant force for every human being on earth.
Abundance | Art | Books | Earth | Force | Life | Life | Nothing | Art |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
Do you know what amazes me more than anything else - the impotence of force to organize anything? There are only two powers in the world - the spirit and the sword; and in the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.