This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
To think that realistic fiction is by definition superior to imaginative fiction is to think imitation is superior to invention.
Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt.
Global | Good | History | Influence | Integration | Life | Life | Nothing | Order | Public | Taste | Learn |
Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella
But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work are distributed among all, it only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day. The remaining hours are spent in learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play.
Friend |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Loneliness is the mind that the diet is to the body, is fatal if too long, but necessary.
Good |
Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun
Although the Buddhadharma has not perished, the Sangha itself has. Morality and virtue should be cultivated, but are not. The honest and sincere ones invite ridicule, While the false and scheming ones enjoy praise. In the world of the five turbidities, pure people are rare. Living beings never awaken from the three kinds of intoxication.I have some earnest words of exhortation for the young generation of the Sangha: The revival of our religion depends on you Bhikshus.
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
Some would ask what country am I from? We are supposed to tell the truth, [so] we tell them India. Some thought it was Indiana, not India! Some did not know where India is. I said the country next to Pakistan.
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
In the hyperconnected world, there is only good better and best,
Aspiration | Dreams | Government | Order | People | Aspiration | Government |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.
Friends |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile.
Energy | Focus | Revolution | Technology |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
We need to become energy independent or at least aspire to that.
Balance | Technology | Understand |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention argues that no two countries that are both part of the same global supply chain will ever fight a war as long as they are each part of that supply chain.
Will |
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
There's one uneasy borderline between what is external and what is internal, and this borderline is defined exactly by the sense organs and the skin and the introduction of external things within my own body. Consciousness is altered by physical events and physical objects, which impinge upon my sense organs, or which I introduce into my body.
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
Learning how to operate a soul figures to take time.
Right |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid — but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.
Children | Cooperation | Earth | Fun | Nature | Technology | World | Govern | Learn |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.
Balance |