This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male.
Civilization | Discovery | Discovery |
Mechthild of Magdeburg, also Mechtild NULL
A fish cannot drown in water, A bird does not fall in air. In the fire of creation, God doesn't vanish: The fire brightens. Each creature God made must live in its own true nature; How could I resist my nature, That lives for oneness with God?
Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber
Since Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the character of a religion essentially free from magic, it rendered an important service from the point of view of economic history. For the dominance of magic outside the sphere in which Christianity has prevailed in one of the most serious obstructions to the rationalization of economic life. Magic involves a stereotyping of technology and economic relations. When attempts were made in China to inaugurate the building of railroads and factories a conflict with geomancy ensued ... Similar is the relation to capitalism of the castes in India. Every new technical process which an Indian employs signifies for him first of all that he leaves his caste and falls into another, necessarily lower ... An additional fact is that every caste makes every other caste impure. In consequence, workmen who dare not accept a vessel filled with water from each other's hands, cannot be employed together in the same factory room. Obviously, capitalism could not develop in an economic group thus bound hand and foot by magical means.
Capitalism | Character | Important | Magic | Religion | Service | Technology |
A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.
Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL
I count it happiness, Ere we go quickly thither whence we came, To gaze ungrieving on these majesties, The world-wide sun, the stars, water and clouds, and fire. Live, Parmeno, a hundred years Or a few months, these you will always see and never, never, any greater things. Think of this life-time as a festival Or visit to a strange city, full of noise, Buying and selling, thieving, dicing stalls And joy parks. If you leave it early, friend, Why, think you have gone to find a better inn: You have paid your fare and leave no enemies.
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
Human nature is good, just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good, just as there is no water that does not flow downward..
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
LOVE is essentially self-communicative: those who do not have it catch it from those who have it.... No amount of rites, rituals, ceremonies, worship, meditation, penance and remembrance can produce love in themselves. None of these is necessarily a sign of love. On the contrary, those who sigh loudly and weep and wail have yet to experience love. Love sets on fire the one who finds it. At the same time it seals his lips so that no smoke comes out.
Experience | Love | Time |
If one looks into the genealogies of many 'old families,' one discovers episodes of slave trafficking, bootlegging, gun running, opium trading, falsified land claims, violent acquisition of water and mineral rights, the extermination of indigenous peoples, sales of shoddy and unsafe goods, public funds used for private speculations, crooked deals in government bonds and vouchers, and payoffs for political favors. One finds fortunes built on slave labor, indentured labor, prison labor, immigrant labor, female labor, child labor, and scab labor -- backed by the lethal force of gun thugs and militia. 'Old money' is often little more than dirty money laundered by several generations of possession.
Dirty | Force | Government | Labor | Land | Little | Looks | Money | Prison | Public | Government | Child |
Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell
Whether you’ve found your calling, or if you’re still searching, passion should be the fire that drives your life’s work.
Passion |
Michael Jackson, fully Michael Joseph Jackson, aka MJ or King of Pop
In the end, the most important thing is to be true to yourself and those you love and work hard. Work like there's no tomorrow. Train. Strive. Really train and cultivate your talent to the highest degree. Be the best at what you do. Get to know more about your field than anybody alive. Use the tools of your trade, if it's books or a floor to dance on or a body of water to swim in. Whatever it is, it's yours. That's what I've always tried to remember.
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
All I know is that while I’m asleep, I’m never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories — and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level. There’s only one bad thing about sleep, as far as I’ve ever heard, and that is that it resembles death, since there’s very little difference between a sleeping man and a corpse.
In the Western imagination, reason has long belonged to terra firma. Island or continent, it repels water with a solid stubbornness: it only concedes its sand. As for unreason, it has been aquatic from the depths of time and until fairly recently. And more precisely oceanic: infinite space, uncertain ... Madness is the flowing liquid exterior of rocky reason.
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
Beauty in a good woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword; the one does not burn, or the other wound, those who come not too close.
Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa NULL
All the water and drink you've consumed from beginningless time until now has failed to satisfy your thirst or bring you contentment. Drink therefore of this stream Of enlightened mind, Fortunate Ones.
Time |
Mikhail Naimy, also spelled Mikha'il Na'ima
So, think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire across the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is. So speak as if the world entire were but a single ear intent on hearing what you say. And so, in truth, it is. Do as if your every deed were to recoil upon your heads. And, so in truth it does.So wish as if you were the wish. And so, in truth, you are. So live as if your God Himself had need of you his life to live. And so, in truth, he does.
God | Life | Life | Need | Thought | Truth | World | God | Think | Thought |
Mikhail Gorbachev, fully Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations. Peace is movement towards globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now. Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences. And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.
Absence | Cooperation | Creativity | Means | Peace | Unity |
The bashful learneth not, the impatient teacheth not. Why is Torah compared to water? To teach thee that as water floweth away from the lofty and gathereth only in the lowly places, so with wisdom among men.
Muktabai of Maharashtra or Muktabai or Muktai NULL
Though he has no form my eyes saw him, his glory is fire in my mind that knows his secret inner form invented by the soul. What is beyond the mind has no boundary. In it our senses end. Mukta says: Words cannot hold him yet in him all words are. Where darkness is gone I live, where I am happy. I am not troubled by coming and going, I am beyond all vision, above all spheres. His spirit lives in my soul. Mukta says: He is my heart's only home.
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace.
Coercion | Cooperation |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion – the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals – the technique of the market place.
Coercion | Cooperation |