This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education." - Thomas Jefferson
"Forgiveness is not explanation… Explanations have to do with exploring causes, with digging down into the past in an effort to exert whatever control is still possible over the past. Forgiveness, on the other hand, has to do with letting go of the past – giving up the claim to control the past and refusing to be controlled by it. But forgiving is not the same thing as forgetting. “Letting go” of the past is not some kind of erasure; forgiveness is not an attempt to obliterate the past or wipe the slate clean… because the past is important, there can be no “unconditional forgiveness.”" - Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
"Happiness – the joy of living – comes in the experience of gratitude that flows forma vision of one’s life as a reality received, a gift given freely and spontaneously. Such a vision removes self from the center, thus healing self-centeredness by revealing the folly of the illusion of control." - Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
"The world is sacred. It can’t be improved. If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it... The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"The evil of the Holocaust was realized through the exercise of a certain kind of power – coercive power. It was a power that sought to dominate and control. It was a power legitimated through law, buttressed by propaganda, augmented by terror, and affected through all the institutions of society." - Mary Jo Leddy
"Only by being permitted to experience the consequences of his actions will the child acquire a sense of responsibility; and within the limits marked by the demands of his safety this must be done. From such training we can expect many benefits to the person, one of which will certainly be the development of a natural rather than an imposed control over [himself]." - Robert M. Linder, fully Robert Mitchell Linder
"Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them." - Vincent McNabb
"Ideas are the real substance of human life. Ideas guide our actions and even control our movements. It is just as well to put them in order first and then to display their anatomy." - Jonathan Miller, fully Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller
"Advance in understanding of nature or even in control of nature does not diminish God. God is not the sum total of what man does not know about nature or what man cannot control in nature." - Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
"If all the records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”… All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. “Reality control,” they called it; in Newspeak, “doublethink.”" -
"Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual condition of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtler than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery." - Richard Powers
"There are many things children accept as “grown-up things” over which they have no control and for which they have no responsibility – for instance, weddings, having babies, buying houses, and driving cars. Parents who are separating really need to help their children put divorce on that grown-up list, so that children do not see themselves as the cause of their parents’ decision to live apart." - Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers
"A true leader does not seek followers, he wants to teach others how to be leaders. He does not want control, he wants the truth. He does not impose his leadership on others, nor does he take away anyone's autonomy. He inspires by love, not coercion. When it comes time to take credit, he makes himself invisible; but he is the first to arrive at the time of need, and he will never shrink away in fear. He is so passionate about your welfare that when you consult him for guidance, it is like coming face to face with yourself for the first time." - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
"If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of behavior." - B. F. Skinner, fully Burrhus Frederic "B.F." Skinner
"Words are things. Thoughts are things. Where your thoughts are, you are. When we learn to discipline and control our thoughts and feelings, and use only the positive, constructive words, sent forth with divine love, our body and mind respond to that righteousness – right-use-ness. The right use and selection of words is of vital importance but equally important is the feeling behind those words, for feeling is the motivating power that makes the words live." - Baird T. Spalding
"Some misfortunes we bring upon ourselves; others are completely beyond our control. But no matter what happens to us, we always have some control over what we do about it." - Suzy Szasz
"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will hold onto. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools chances are that you'll cut your hands." -
"Control your destiny or someone else will." - Noel M. Tichy and Stratford Sherman
"The function of civil law is not to teach theology or even the moral views of the legislator… The morality of divorce, birth control, liquor traffic and the like are one thing. Civil legislation about them is quite another." - Gustave Weigel
"The rushing of the sea-tides of our soul; and inspirations, that we deem our own, are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing of things beyond our reason or control." - John Greenleaf Whittier
"It is one of the paradoxes of the human race and possibly its last paradox, that the people who control the fortunes of our community should at the same time be wildly radical in matters that concern our own change of our environment, and rigidly conservative in the social matters that determine our adaptation to it." -
"I find that if I remind myself (frequently) that the purpose of life isn't to get it all done but to enjoy each step along the way and live a life filled with love, it's far easier for me to control my obsession with completing my list of things to do." - Richard Carlson
"Many people live as if life were a dress rehearsal for some later date. It isn't. In fact, no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. When our attention is in the present moment, we push fear from our minds." - Richard Carlson
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player." - Albert Einstein
"offers the image of a chariot in which the driver uses an obedient lead horse to control another wayward horse; that is, cool reason may know the Good but cannot control the passions without a passionate ally - without a spirit that loves the Good and greets evil with moral indignation." - James R. Flynn, aka Jim Flynn
"Americans often pride themselves on being members of the largest, most enduring, and most successful democracy in the world. Yet their lives, to a great degree, are channeled, shaped, and determined by the decisions of a very few people sitting in the board rooms and executive suites of the giant corporations, over whom they exercise little control." - Edward S. Greenberg
"When The goal is not to have but to be; not to own but to give; not to control but to share; not to subdue but to be in accord… not to amass, but to face sacred moments." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"I have not ceased in being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life...specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown; and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in my heart that says: turn back, turn back, you'll die if you venture too far." -
"Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control." - Richard Kline
"Even as the government cedes control over large parts of the economy, its graft-ridden approach to privatization could leave long-lasting scars that hold India back from reaching its potential." - Eswar S Prasad
"Leadership is not about how many people you control, but how many one liberates to reach their full potential." - Brand Pretorious
"Harmonious living tells of harmonious thinking. A turbulent life reveals some kind of inner turmoil or lack of resolution... Outer events are simply the skin and bones of inner thoughts, and to really take control of our lives, we must treat them as one. Concentrate on that which you would become, not that which you now believe you are, and you will enter a new realm of consciousness - one of chosen good." - Alan Cohen
"Harmonious living tells of harmonious thinking. A turbulent life reveals some kind of inner turmoil or lack of resolution... Outer events are simply the skin and bones of inner thoughts, and to really take control of our lives, we must treat them as one. Concentrate on that which you would become, not that which you now believe you are, and you will enter a new realm of consciousness - one of chosen good." -
"Harmonious living tells of harmonious thinking. A turbulent life reveals some kind of inner turmoil or lack of resolution... Outer events are simply the skin and bones of inner thoughts, and to really take control of our lives, we must treat them as one. Concentrate on that which you would become, not that which you now believe you are, and you will enter a new realm of consciousness - one of chosen good." -
"Peace is self-control at its widest - at the width where the “self” has been lost, and the interest has been transferred to coordinations wider than personality." - Alfred North Whitehead
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure , the process is its own reward." - Amelia Earhart, fully Amelia Mary Earhart
"Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"The poorest education that teaches self-control, is better than the best that neglects it." - Author Unknown NULL
"Circumstances are beyond the control of man; but his conduct is in his own power." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"Words are one of our chief means of adjusting to all the situations of life. The better control we have of over words, the more successful our adjustment is likely to be." - Bergen Baldwin Evans