This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I've noticed two things about men who get big salaries. They are almost invariably men who, in conversation or in conference, are adaptable. They quickly get the other fellow's view. They are more eager to do this than to express their own ideas. Also, they state their own point of view convincingly.
Conversation | Ideas | Men | Wisdom |
Politicians... rise predominantly from... the "lower middle class"; most are self-made men... ; most depend on their political jobs for their livelihood and most have little time, inclination, or opportunity for adult education; hence the dominating qualities of so many are greed, vulgarity, attention to special interest, avarice, and selfishness.
Attention | Avarice | Education | Greed | Inclination | Little | Men | Opportunity | Qualities | Self | Selfishness | Time | Vulgarity | Wisdom |
Robert Hillyer, fully Robert Silliman Hillyer
Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world. The best way is to forget doubts and set about the task at hand... If you are doing your best, you will not have time to worry about failure.
Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
Even if governmental conduct of business could give us more efficiency instead of less efficiency, the fundamental objection to it would remain unaltered and unabated. It would destroy political equality. It would increase rather than decrease abuse and corruption. It would stifle initiative and invention. It would undermine the development of leadership. It would cramp and cripple the mental and spiritual energies of our people. It would extinguish equality and opportunity. It would dry up the spirit of liberty and progress.
Abuse | Business | Conduct | Corruption | Destroy | Efficiency | Equality | Initiative | Invention | Liberty | Opportunity | People | Progress | Spirit | Wisdom | Business |
Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts. Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.
Business | Commerce | Consequences | Control | Free speech | Government | Industry | Life | Life | Means | Order | Peace | People | Speech | Time | Wisdom | Government | Business | Commerce |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
The state is the servant of the citizen, and not his master.
Wisdom |
The world of our consciousness consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner ‘state’ in which the thinking comes to pass. What we think of may be enormous - the cosmic times and spaces, for example - whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of the mind. Yet the cosmic objects, so far as the experience yields them, are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point outwardly, while the inner state is our very experience itself; its reality and that of our experience are one.
Consciousness | Example | Existence | Experience | Mind | Reality | Thinking | Time | Wisdom | World | Think |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
A police state finds it cannot command the grain to grow.
Wisdom |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe - the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
Belief | Generosity | God | Life | Life | Man | Mortal | Poverty | Power | Rights | Wisdom | World |
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in the punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
Good | Government | Health | Little | Observation | People | Punishment | Rebellion | Rights | Sound | Truth | Wisdom | World |