This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
Men | Principles | War |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Music illustrates the primordial forces of nature, while li reflects the products of creation. Heaven represents the principle of eternal motion, while Earth represents the principle of remaining still, and these two principles of motion and rest permeate life between Heaven and Earth.
Earth | Eternal | Heaven | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Principles | Rest |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
A man can enlarge his principles; his principles do not enlarge a man.
Man | Principles |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
He who merely knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.
Principles | Right |
The development of the Observer can allow a person considerable access to observing different identity states, and an outside observer may often clearly infer different identity states, but a person himself who has not developed the Observer function very well may never notice the many transitions from one identity state to another.
Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi
To begin with, it is just One Mind, all One; then we generate all the boundaries and definitions. As soon as we define ourselves in relation to another we feel more comfortable, because now we know how to be and to act. To go into a situation completely ignorant of our role is very scary. We really have to trust ourselves then. But how can we trust if we do not know who we are? So we fall back on some definition of ourselves and put our trust in that... We lose our identity when we lose our definition. We do not realize it, but that is a wonderful, extraordinary happening, because for a time we are free of our boundaries. For a moment we are nobody, but that is just too frightening. So in order to grab on to some definition, a false sense of security and comfort, what do we do right away? We get into another relationship. At least in relationship, even if it is not working for us, we know who we are.
Comfort | Mind | Order | Relationship | Right | Security | Sense | Time | Trust |
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
People | Principles |
The great difference between the real statesman and the pretender is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts on expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for immortality.
Day | Future | Immortality | Present | Principles |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of American is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.
Fate | Greatness | Man | Personality | Principles | Fate |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved. As a rule the majority are wrong, the minority is usually right.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
What experience and history teach is this - that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
Experience | History | Principles | Teach |
To lay aside all prejudice is to lay aside all principles. He who is destitute of principles is governed, theoretically and practically, by whims.
Prejudice | Principles |
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong.
Common Sense | Kill | Little | Principles | Sense | Wrong | Afraid |
It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.
Many men do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing.
Children | Men | Principles |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.
To establish the principles of the Declaration of Independence, we are going to need to go outside the law, to stop obeying the laws that demand killing or that allocate wealth the way it has been done, or that put people in jail for petty technical offense and keep other people out of jail for enormous crimes.
The principal of ethics being a categorical imperative does not admit of proof, but it admits of a justification from principles of pure practical reason.
Ethics | Justification | Principles | Reason |
Not only are moral laws with their principles essentially distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives laws a priori to him as a rational being. No doubt these laws require a judgment sharpened by experience, in order on the one hand to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other to procure for them access to the will of the man and effectual influence on conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations that, though capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is not so easily able to make it effective in concreto in his life.
Conduct | Distinguish | Doubt | Experience | Influence | Judgment | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Order | Philosophy | Principles | Reason | Will |