This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently.
Capacity | Care | Day | Dynamic | Enthusiasm | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Nature | People | Think |
Angela Merkel, fully Angela Dorothea Merkel, née Kasner
The problem is, of course, that these interest groups are all asking for changes, but their enthusiasm for change rapidly disappears when it affects the core of their own interests.
Change | Enthusiasm |
The popularity of the paranormal, oddly enough, might even be grounds for encouragement. I think that the appetite for mystery, the enthusiasm for that which we do not understand, is healthy and to be fostered. It is the same appetite which drives the best of true science, and it is an appetite which true science is best qualified to satisfy.
Appetite | Enthusiasm | Popularity | Science | Think |
Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley
One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.
Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent-or else expire of boredom.
It’s always easier to dismiss a person than to train him. No great leader ever built a reputation on firing people.
Enthusiasm | Example | Work |
Saki, pen name for Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro NULL
Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.
It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race; and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
I love and am loved by a better man than he.
Enthusiasm | Little | Love | Will |
Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL
The French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up to the present, at all events, the least musical race on Earth.
Enthusiasm | Man | Religion | Virtue | Virtue |
One never gets to know a person's character better than by watching his behavior during decisive moments.... It is always only danger which forces the most deeply hidden strengths and abilities of a human being to come forth.
Theodor Herzl, born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl
But I am convinced that those Jews who stand aside today with a malicious smile and with their hands in their trousers' pockets will also want to dwell in our beautiful home.
Belief | Better | Devotion | Enthusiasm | Good | Labor | Money | Will | Work |
Thomas Dewar, Lord Dewar, fully Thomas Robert "Tommy" Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar
An honest confession is good for the soul, but bad for the reputation
Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
Discussion | Disease | Education | Enthusiasm |
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.
Enthusiasm | Means | Politics | Reason |
We should be determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government... in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.
Bigotry | Discussion | Disease | Education | Enthusiasm | Will |
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
This is a choice that makes overwhelming sense.
Enthusiasm | Fanaticism | Humanity | Means | Politics | Reason | Salvation |
To secure these [inalienable] rights [to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on suchprinciples, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Age | Danger | Enthusiasm | Freedom | Man | Mankind | Mind | Science | Spirit | Will | World | Youth | Youth | Danger | Think |
Victor Weisskopf, fully Victor "Viki" Frederick Weisskopf
Goedel proved that a system of axioms can never be based on itself; in order to prove its validity, statements from outside must be used.
Challenge | Enthusiasm | Ideas | Influence | Present | Sense | Unique |