This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The silent influence of books, is a mighty power in the world; and there is a joy in reading them known only to those who read them with desire and enthusiasm. Silent, passive, and noiseless though they be, they yet set in action countless multitudes and change the order of nations.
Action | Books | Change | Character | Desire | Enthusiasm | Influence | Joy | Nations | Order | Power | Reading | Wisdom | World |
Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them. It gets the name of willfulness when it will not admit of a lawful change to the better. Therefore constancy without knowledge cannot be always good. In things ill it is not virtue, but an absolute vice.
Absolute | Better | Change | Character | Constancy | Good | Knowledge | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | Will |
The great revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
Change | Character | Discovery | Revolution | Discovery |
Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
Adventure | Change | Character | Daring | Fate | Life | Life | Nothing | Strength | Fate |
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
This spectacle of old age would be unendurable if we did not know that our psyche reaches into a region held captive neither by change in time nor by limitation of place. In that form of being our birth is a death and our death is a birth. The scales of the whole hang balanced.
Age | Birth | Change | Character | Death | Old age | Time | Wisdom | Old |
Self-knowledge is the primary step in conscious evolutionary change. When people confront and integrate their individual fears and limitations, they facilitate the confrontation and integration of our racial, national, and planetary fears. Lasting social change is only possible when individual consciousness has first been changed.
Change | Character | Consciousness | Individual | Integration | Knowledge | People | Self | Self-knowledge |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
When at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment of each one of us - recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state - our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions - were we truly men of courage... were we truly men of judgment... were we truly men of integrity... were we truly men of dedication?
Character | Courage | Dedication | Failure | Future | History | Integrity | Judgment | Men | Office | Service | Success | Will |
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could be better changed in ourselves.
The most effective way to cope with change is to help create it.