This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
M. C. Richards, fully Mary Caroline Richards
It helps, I think, to consider ourselves on a very long journey; the main thing is to keep to the faith, to endure, to help each other when we stumble or tire, to weep and press on.
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton
I read a great number of press reports and find comfort in the fact that they are nearly always conflicting.
Comfort |
Maureen Dowd, fully Maureen Bridgid Dowd
Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Better the absence of greatness than the establishing of a false greatness by assumed humility. Not only do these efforts at humility on man's part not express strength, they are, on the contrary, expressions of modesty born of weakness, which springs from a lack of knowledge of the truth of Reality. Beware of modesty. Modesty, under the cloak of humility, invariably leads one into the clutches of self-deception. Modesty breeds egoism, and man eventually succumbs to pride through assumed humility. The greatest greatness and the greatest humility go hand in hand naturally and without effort.
Absence | Greatness | Humility | Knowledge | Man | Modesty | Pride | Truth |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Strength begets humility, whereas modesty bespeaks weakness. Only he who is truly great can be really humble.
Modesty |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Be pure and simple, and love all because all are one. Live a sincere life; be natural, and be honest with yourself. Honesty will guard you against false modesty and will give you the strength of true humility. Spare no pains to help others. Seek no other reward than the gift of Divine Love.
True modesty is the source of all virtues.
Modesty |
Fearless gentleness is the most beautiful of feminine attractions born of modesty and love.
Gentleness | Modesty |
Press on! for in the grave there is no work and no device. Press on! while yet you may.
Newt Gingrich, fully Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich, born Newton Leroy McPherson
You have to give the press confrontations. When you give them confrontations, you get attention; when you get attention, you can educate.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
There is a kind of harmful modesty which … sometimes affects men of superior character to their detriment by keeping them in a state of mediocrity. I am reminded of the remark that a certain gentleman of acknowledged eminence once made at luncheon to some persons of the Court, How bitterly I regret the time I wasted merely to learn how superior I am to all of you!
Nikita Krushchev, fully Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev
The press is our chief ideological weapon.
Oswald Spengler, fully Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler
The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. But, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and the war aims and operating plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play. There is no more appalling caricature of freedom of thought. Formerly no one was allowed to think freely; now it is permitted, but no one is capable of it any more. Now people want to think only what they are supposed to want to think, and this they consider freedom.
Otto von Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg
Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.
When I was a child, I often used to lie awake at night, in fearful anticipation of some unpleasant event the following day, such as a visit to the dentist, and wish I could press some sort of button that would have the effect of instantly transporting me twenty-four hours into the future. The following night, I would wonder whether that magic button was in fact real, and that the trick had indeed worked. After all, it was twenty-four hours later, and though I could remember the visit to the dentist, it was, at that time, only a memory of an experience, not an experience.
Anticipation | Magic | Memory | Wonder | Following |
Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith
The liberty of the press is the true measure of all other liberty; for all freedom without this must be merely nominal.
Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend
Human paint, produce films and videos; they dance, dream and make music; they engage in political action, exchange goods, perform rituals, build houses start wars, act in plays, try to please patrons- and so on... They contain patterns, press the practitioners to "conform" and in this way mold their thought, their perception, their actions, and their discriminative abilities.
Awake, my soul stretch every nerve, And press with vigor on A heavenly race demands thy zeal, And an immortal crown.
Human Energy presents itself to our view as the term of a vast process in which the whole mass of the universe is involved. In us, the evolution of the world towards the spirit becomes conscious. From that moment, our perfection, our interest, our salvation as elements of creation can only be to press on with this evolution with all our strength. We cannot yet understand exactly where it will lead us, but it would be absurd for us to doubt that it will lead us towards some end of supreme value. From this there finally emerges in our twentieth century human consciousness, for the first time since the awakening of life on earth, the fundamental problem of Action. No longer, as in the past, for our small selves, for our small family, our small country; but for the salvation and the success of the universe, how must we, modern men, organize around us for the best, the maintenance, distribution and progress of human energy?
Absurd | Awakening | Doubt | Energy | Evolution | Life | Life | Progress | Salvation | Spirit | Success | Time | Universe | Will | World | Understand |
Pierre Beaumarchais, fully Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Only one thing to it: a strong stomach. The guts to gladhand a man you're going to stab in the back; pledge allegiance to principles you stomp on every day; righteously denounce some despot in the press and sell him arms under the table. The talent to whip up the voters' worst passions while you seem to call on their highest instincts, and the sense to stay wrapped in the flag. That's politics: I'll take the simple life.
Despot | Man | Principles | Sense | Talent |