This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
Earth | Liberty | Nations | Respect | Vision | Wealth | Respect | Leadership |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
American industry is not free, as once it was free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the industry and the economic life of this country. No man can deny that the lines of endeavor have more and more narrowed and stiffened; no man who knows anything about the development of industry in this country can have failed to observe that the larger kinds of credit are more and more difficult to obtain, unless you obtain them upon the terms of uniting your efforts with those who already control the industries of the country; and nobody can fail to observe that any man who tries to set himself up in competition with any process of manufacture which has been taken under the control of large combinations of capital will presently find himself either squeezed out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be absorbed.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
Thirty or forty proprietors, with incomes answering to between one thousand and five thousand a year, would create a much more effectual demand for the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life, than a single proprietor possessing a hundred thousand a year.
But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; and that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice; cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation; the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character; the other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of happiness perfectly chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and in fact depress our joys by endeavoring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity with which the world would allure us, religion confers upon us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid, more equal, and more lasting.
Action | Attention | Character | Competition | Enemy | Enjoyment | Foresight | Industry | Life | Life | Mind | Pleasure | Present | Prudence | Prudence | Wealth | World | Youth | Youth |
They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.
Change | Future | Past | Present | Right | Service | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |
We learn how to close the gap between what we are and what we could become. But what if we are yet to identify what we could become? Frankl noted that the modern person has almost too much freedom to deal with. We no longer live through instinct, but tradition is no guide either. This is the existential vacuum, in which the frustrated will to meaning is compensated for in the urge for money, sex, entertainment, even violence. We are not open to the various sources of meaning, which according to Frankl are: 1 Creating a work or doing a deed. 2 Experiencing something or encountering someone (love). 3. The attitude we take to unavoidable suffering.
Obligation | Wealth |
Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
If someone offered you a pill that would make you permanently happy, you would be well advised to run fast and run far. Emotion is a compass that tells us what to do, and a compass that perpetually stuck on north is worthless.
Noble the house was, nor seemed built for war, but rather like the work of other days, when men, in better peace than now they are, had leisure on the world around to gaze, and noted well the past times' changing ways; and fair with sculptured stories it was wrought, by lapse of time unto dim ruin brought.
Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.
You may have the bravery of a strong fighter, but unless you possess the intelligent strength of discriminating knowledge, you will not turn the tide in the battle with samsara. So possess the intelligent strength of discriminating knowledge!
Wealth |
Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
The terrorists know what is at stake, which is why they are pulling out all the stops to derail our efforts. They understand that a free and democratic Iraq is a serious blow to their interests.
Wealth |
She hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.
Wealth |