This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We are making the price of power much too high in this society. I worry that we are making the conditions of public life so tough that nobody except people really obsessed with power will be willing finally to pay that price. That would be tragic from the point of view of public well-being.
Life | Life | People | Power | Price | Public | Society | Will | Wisdom | Worry |
The perfect condition of slavery... is nothing else but the state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive, for if once compact enter between them, and make an agreement for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the state of war and slavery ceases as long as the compact endures; for, as has been said, no man can by agreement pass over to another that which hath not in himself - a power over his own life.
Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Obedience | Power | Slavery | War | Wisdom |
For as long as a time as we can see into the future, we shall be living between war and peace, between a war that cannot be fought and a peace that cannot be achieved. The great issues which divide the world cannot be decided by a war that could be won, and they cannot be settled by a treaty that can be negotiated... the power which used to deal with the division and conflicts of the past, namely, organized war, has become an impossible instrument to use.
Future | Past | Peace | Power | Time | War | Wisdom | World |
Let us have faith that right makes right, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Duty | Faith | Right | Wisdom | Understand |
Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into unwearied energy.
Energy | Faith | Indolence | Love | Man | Motives | Object | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Selfishness | Will | Wisdom |
Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then possessed of any good, when we have it so in our power that we can use it when we please... Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good lost, which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a present evil.
Consideration | Evil | Good | Joy | Mind | Power | Present | Sense | Sorrow | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
Barry Lopez, fully Barry Holstun Lopez
The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life.
Consideration | Land | Life | Life | Meaning | Poetry | Power | Wisdom |
Karl Marx (1818-1883) German Philosopher, Socialist and Friedrich Engels
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.
Belief in immortality gives dignity to life and enables us to endure cheerfully those trials which come to us all. As the thought of immortality occupies our minds, we gain a clearer conception of duty and are inspired to cultivate character. Living for the future is not coward's philosophy, but an inspiration to noble and unselfish activity.
Belief | Character | Dignity | Duty | Future | Immortality | Inspiration | Life | Life | Philosophy | Thought | Trials | Wisdom | Thought |
Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
The mind has more to do with holding the fastnesses of life and has more sovereign sway over it than the power of the soul. For without the understanding and the mind no part of the soul can maintain itself in the frame the smallest fraction of time.
Life | Life | Mind | Power | Soul | Time | Understanding | Wisdom |
Freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so necessary to, and closely joined with, a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his preservation and life together. For a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot by contract or his own consent enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another to take away his life when he pleases. Nobody can give more power than he has himself, and he that cannot take away his own life cannot give another power over it.
The difficulties, hardships, and trials of life, the obstacles one encounters on the road to fortune, are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. Peril is the element in which power is developed.
Blessings | Fortune | Life | Life | Peril | Power | Self | Self-reliance | Teach | Trials | Wisdom |