This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A good case can be made for the proposition that, although involved or passionate commitment to some cause or ideal is normally healthy and happiness-producing, devout, pious, or fanatic commitment to the same kind of cause or ideal is potentially pernicious and frequently (though not always) does much more harm than good.
Cause | Commitment | Good | Harm | Pious |
Grand Council of the American Indians NULL
We want freedom from the white man rather than to be integrated. We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers ... .we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.
Children | Freedom | Land | Man | Peace | Power | Religion |
Max Cleland, fully Joseph Maxwell Cleland
We must teach our children to set high goals for their lives, to raise the bar even higher than before. And importantly, we must allow our children to dream.
Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
Mike Pence, formally Michael Richard "Mike" Pence
We have to make sure that a catastrophe of nature does not become a catastrophe of debt for our children and grandchildren.
Jack L. Nelson & William B. Stanley
Most teachers do not like controversy. A study some years ago found that 92 percent of teachers did not initiate discussion of controversial issues, 89 percent didn't discuss controversial issues when students brought them up, and 79 percent didn't believe they should. Among the topics that teachers felt children were interested in discussing but that most teachers believed should not be discussed in the classroom were the Vietnam War, politics, race relations, nuclear war, religion, and family problems such as divorce.
Children | Controversy | Discussion | Family | Politics | Problems | Race | Religion | Study | War |
It has been said that the primary function of schools is to impart enough facts to make children stop asking questions. Some, with whom the schools do not succeed, become scientists... and I never stopped asking questions.
Abigail Van Buren, pen name for Pauline Phillips and now daughter Jeanne Phillips
If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time on them and half as much money.
Adrienne Rich, fully Adrienne Cecil Rich
[Responsibility to yourself] means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short, simply to avoid conflict and confrontation. And this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in places assigned to us. It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be “different”; not to be continuously available to others when we need time for ourselves and our work; to be able to demand of others – parents, friends, roommates, teachers, lovers, husbands, children – that they respect our sense of purpose and our integrity as persons.
Children | Courage | Integrity | Life | Life | Love | Means | Need | Parents | Play | Purpose | Purpose | Respect | Responsibility | Safe | Sense | Society | Time | Work | Friendship | Society | Respect |