This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt
In order to bring about the transition from the condition of the present to another newly resolved on, every reform should be allowed to proceed as much as possible from men's minds and thoughts.
Attainment | Humanity | Prejudice |
Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt
To behold, is not necessary to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy which prevails.
Eternal |
Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg
I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night an ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?
Day | Hope | Present | Reason | Regret | Thought | Understanding | Will | Thought |
Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg
The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole.
There is no real understanding of “social justice” without an understanding of basic economic principles. These principles explain how Orthodox Christians work, earn, invest, and give to philanthropic causes in a market-oriented economy. Economic questions are at the root of many of the problems that on their face seem to be more about something else — poverty, immigration, the environment, technology, politics, humanitarian assistance.
Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
I think what I want Disneyland to be most of all is a happy place — a place where adults and children can experience together some of the wonders of life, of adventure, and feel better because of it.
Pride |
Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
Persons whose world view has been formed by high literacy need to remind themselves that in functionally oral cultures the past is not felt as an itemized terrain, peppered with verifiable and disputed "facts" or bits of information. It is the domain of the ancestors, a resonant source for renewing awareness of present existence, which itself is not an itemized terrain either. Orality knows no lists or charts or figures.
Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
Leadership is the capacity to transform vision into reality.
Will | Leadership |
Until modern times, we focused a great deal of the best of our thought upon rituals of return to the human condition. Seeking enlightenment or the Promised Land or the way home, a man would go or be forced to go into the wilderness, measure himself against the Creation, recognize finally his true place within it, and thus be saved both from pride and from despair. Seeing himself as a tiny member of a world he cannot comprehend or master or in any final sense possess, he cannot possibly think of himself as a god. And by the same token, since he shares in, depends upon, and is graced by all of which he is a part, neither can he become a fiend; he cannot descend into the final despair of destructiveness. Returning from the wilderness, he becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.
Conservation | Energy | Policy | Public | Rule | System | Crisis |
This new war, like the previous one, would be a test of the power of machines against people and places; whatever its causes and justifications, it would make the world worse. This was true of that new war, and it has been true of every new war since.
W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
The key statement about anyone's life is the redemption of the manifestation, through depth understanding that bypasses social conditioning, spiritual materialism, defenses and preferences.
W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
The unconscious is composed of multiple, autonomous personalities. These personalities affect our state of health -- from allergic response to disease states such as diabetes and cancer. He suggests that the unconscious mind is far more extensive and powerful than is generally acknowledged, and that the normal conscious mind cannot hope to control the personalities within. Esoteric rites and initiations, he maintains, were designed to call forth particular personalities from the unconscious at appropriate stages of development.
Dreams | Ego | Influence | Life | Life | Mind | Mystery | Nature | Position | Reflection | Think |
W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer
The essential quality for a mathematician is the habit of thinking things out for oneself. That habit is usually acquired in childhood. It is hard to acquire it later.
Adaptability | Education | Individual | Learning | Mind | Practice | Resentment | Skill |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.
Mistake |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
From the vulgar bourgeois standpoint the terms dictatorship and democracy are mutually exclusive. Failing to understand the theory of class struggle, and accustomed to seeing in the political arena the petty squabbling of the various bourgeois circles and coteries, the bourgeois conceives dictatorship to mean the annulment of all the liberties and guarantees of democracy, tyranny of every kind, and every sort of abuse of power in the personal interests of a dictator.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Materialism is the recognition of "objects in themselves", or outside the mind; ideas and sensations are copies of images of those objects.
Bourgeoisie | Character | Means | Necessity | Rule | System |