This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The apportioning of blame [is] the means by which society obtains a modicum of revenge for the wrong it has suffered, expiates its own guilt for such responsibility as it may have had for the event in question, and finally seeks to prevent a repetition of the disaster.
Blame | Guilt | Means | Question | Responsibility | Revenge | Society | Wrong | Society |
The great moral reformers have usually found the greatest opposition not in the “immoral” and impulsive individual, but in the regularly constituted organs of social authority and law.
Authority | Individual | Law | Opposition |
Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem – in my opinion – to characterize our age.
Age | Goals | Means | Opinion | Perfection |
Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
Whether on the floor of Congress or in the boardrooms of corporate America or in the corridors of a big city hospital, there is no body of professional expertise and no anthology of case studies which can supplant the force of character which provides both a sense of direction and a means of fulfillment. It asks, now what you want to be, but who you want to be.
An ideal command system… should be able to gather information accurately, continuously, comprehensively, selectively, and fast. Reliable means must be developed to distinguish the true from the false, the relevant from the irrelevant, the material from the immaterial.
Distinguish | Means | System |
Modern secularity has offered another way of dealing with religious pluralism. As religious traditions lose their importance as means of self-understanding and community identification, their differences and mutual exclusiveness diminish in importance. Alienation from any particular religious faith tends to move the question of religious particularity into the realm of indifference, as life is determined by nonreligious values and institutions. Yet secularity has been no more successful in establishing human community than has the religious vision. The competing claims of nationalism, economic imperialism, and ideological triumphalism are also demonic forms of particularity that have not been able to establish a new universality in human community.
Alienation | Faith | Imperialism | Indifference | Life | Life | Means | Question | Self | Understanding | Vision |
In the grossly distorted individualism of today, we are incapable of imagining the selflessly disinterested hero. This may not matter; we may think we can do without him. But what is also means is that we are incapable of imagining the selflessly disinterested hero in ourselves who would give himself to a cause.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Ethics is… to be regarded as a therapeutic attempt – as an endeavor to achieve, by means of a command of the superego, something which has so far not been achieved by means of any other cultural activities. As we already know, the problem before us is how to get rid of the greatest hindrance to civilization – namely, the constitutional inclination of human beings to be aggressive towards one another.
Civilization | Ethics | Inclination | Means |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
Responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination and possessiveness were it not for respect… respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is.
Means | Respect | Responsibility | Respect |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Means are not to be distinguished from ends. If violent means are used, there will be bad results.
Charles de Gaulle, fully Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
Every man of action has a strong dose of egotism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be forgiven him, indeed, they will be regarded as high qualities, if he can make of them the means to achieve great ends.
Action | Cunning | Ends | Man | Means | Pride | Qualities | Will |
God does not make clones. Each person is different, a tribute to God’s creativity. If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must accept people as they are and not demand that they conform to our own image.
Creativity | God | Love | People |
The search for wholeness… The word integrity comes from the Latin integritas, which means to be whole or complete. In Hebrew the word for wholeness and completeness is shalom, which also means peace between people and peace within oneself. In Arabic, the word is salaam.
Every soul develops itself only by means of other souls, and there are no longer individual men, but only one humanity.
Humanity | Individual | Means | Men | Soul |