This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
That which separates man from the brute is the notion of good and evil.... Hence that great and twofold sentiment in man of his liberty and his responsibility. He can be good or he can be wicked. That is an account he will have to settle. He can be guilty; and that — it is a striking fact, and one upon which I insist — is his greatness.
Knowledge is also the giver of wealth or rather wealth is the by-product of knowledge.
Which do you admire, the slain or the slayer, Caesar or Brutus? Generally people are for the slayer. Hurrah for Brutus! He slew. That's virtue. Virtue, but folly too...The Brutus who slew Caesar was in love with a statue of a little boy. This statue was by the Greek sculptor Strongylion, who also designed that statue of an Amazon called the beautiful limbed, Euknemos, which Nero carried with him on his journeys. This Strongylion left nothing but two statues which put Brutus and Nero in harmony. Brutus was in love with one and Nero with the other.
History | Past | Philosophy |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
He explained to Atro that he now understood why the army was organized as it was. It was indeed quite necessary. No rational form of organization would serve the purpose. He simply had not understood that the purpose was to enable men with machine guns to kill unarmed men and women easily and in great quantities when told to do so. Only he still could not see where courage, or manliness, or fitness entered in.
Ideas |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies.
Enough | Ideas | Knowledge | Law | Respect | Society | Theories | Society | Respect |
What I am trying to say is this: We must all learn many things from you, from how to educate our offspring, how to elect our representatives, all the way to how to organize our economic life so that it will lead to prosperity and not poverty. But it doesn’t have to be merely assistance from the well-educated, the powerful and the wealthy to someone who has nothing to offer in return. We too can offer something to you: our experience and the knowledge that has come from it.
Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt.
Global | Good | History | Influence | Integration | Life | Life | Nothing | Order | Public | Taste | Learn |
I appeal to all pupils, students and young people, asking you to focus on the horizons that are opening up for you, and which you could only dream of a year ago. Our future will depend on your desire for education and moral values as well as on your entrepreneurial spirit.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit or, it is nowhere.
Ideas |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
You fear them because you fear death, and rightly: for death is terrible and must be feared,' the mage said...'And life is also a terrible thing,' Ged said, 'and must be feared and praised.
Ideas |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero — really look — and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you. The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. You must change your life, he said. When true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.
The hope of the world lies in the rehabilitation of the living human being, not just the body but also the soul.
Association | Civilization | Conduct | Culture | Events | Fate | Global | History | Human race | Humanity | Race | Reason | Rights | Unique | War | World | Fate | Association |