This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into real improvement of living conditions.
Better | Children | Fighting | Future | Ideas | Improvement | Men | Order | Peace | People | Progress | Struggle | Words |
To truly serve, purpose must be connected to our unique authenticity. That is why money cannot serve as our purpose. It can be a goal, but not a purpose.
Authenticity | Money | Purpose | Purpose | Unique |
Herbert Butterfield, fully Sir Herbert Butterfield
In the kind of world that I see in history there is one sin that locks people up in all their other sins… the sin of self-righteousness.
History | People | Righteousness | Self | Self-righteousness | Sin | World |
It’s easier to succeed because failure exacts a high price in terms of time when you have to do a job over. It’s easier to succeed because success eliminates the agony and frustration of defeat. It’s easier to succeed because money spent to fail must be spent again to succeed. It’s easier to succeed because a person’s credibility decreases with each failure, making it harder to succeed the second time. And it’s easier to succeed because joy and expressions of affirmation come from succeeding, whereas feelings of discouragement and discontent accompany failure.
Agony | Defeat | Discontent | Failure | Feelings | Joy | Money | Price | Success | Time | Failure |
William Bridges, fully Sir William Throsby Bridges
Change occurs when something new starts or something old stops, and it takes place at a particular point in time. But transition cannot be localized in time that way, since it is the gradual . . . process through which individuals and groups reorient themselves. Change often starts with a new beginning, but transition must start with an ending--with people letting go of old attitudes and behaviors.
It was for the sake of security that the people of ancient ties turned to the Baals and other idols. Today, our oppressors turn to money and military power and to the so-called security forces. But their security is insecurity. We experience their security as intimidation and repression, terror, rape and murder. Those who turn to the idols for security demand our insecurity as the price that must be paid.
Experience | Insecurity | Intimidation | Money | Murder | People | Power | Price | Security | Terror |
John Cheever, fully John William Cheever
Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time… You don’t really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don’t have, or haven’t been able to find.
Ch'ien, fully T'ao Chien or Tao Qian, aka Tao Yuan-ming NULL
Excessive thinking harms life; we should go where fate leads, and ride on the waves of the Great Flux without joy and without fear. If life must end, then let it end; there is no need to be full of anxieties.
Frances Hodgson Burnett, fully Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can't be done. They hope it can't be done because it means seeing the garden in a whole new way. Then they see it can be done. Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries before.
Peace is more than simply the absence of aggression and war. Peace transcends the end of a conflict or a statement of policy. While we may force the outward appearance of peace upon a people or a nation, it is the underlying thinking that must change to create a true and lasting peace.
Absence | Aggression | Appearance | Change | Force | Peace | People | Policy | Thinking | War |
Idolatry is the denial of all hope for the future. The idols of the past were worshipped by people who were afraid of change, who wanted things to remain the same, who did not want a future that was different, who found their security in the status quo. The same is true today.
Change | Future | Hope | Past | People | Security | Afraid |