This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"One of the besetting fallacies of reformers is the delusion that their plans will be carried out by people who think precisely as they do." - John Maurice Clark
"If people could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"The great successful people of the world . . . think ahead and create their mental picture, and then go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit but steadily building--steadily building." - Robert Collier
"Not in any prescribed form of prayer, or studied liturgie, but in such manner as the Spirit of grace and prayer teacheth all the people of God." - John Cotton
"One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk." - Crazy Horse, formally Tashunca Uitco NULL
"Build your reputation by helping other people build theirs." - Anthony J. D'Angelo
"You can learn a lot from people who view the world differently than you do." - Anthony J. D'Angelo
"Chairman Mao once said that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. He was only partly right: power that comes from the barrel of a gun can be effective only for a short time. In the end, people’s love for truth, justice, freedom, and democracy will triumph. No matter what governments do, the human spirit will always prevail." -
"The highest moral ideal either for a people or for an individual is to be true to its destiny... to leave the known for the unknown." - Christopher Henry Dawson
"Believe in what you are doing. If you’ve got an idea that’s really powerful, you’ve just got to ignore the people who tell you it won’t work, and hire people who embrace your vision." - Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell
"Government is everywhere to a great extent controlled by powerful minorities, with an interest distinct from that of the mass of the people." - Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
"Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it." - Gordon Rupert Dickson
"Those very characteristics which are demanded by war – the ability to tolerate uncertainty, spontaneity of thought and action, having a mind open to the receipt of novel, and perhaps threatening information – are the antitheses of those possessed by people attracted to the controls, and orderliness, of militarism." - Norman F. Dixon
"The test of organization is not genius. It is the capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performance." - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
"Intellectuals are the most intolerant of all people." - Paul Duncun
"Lowering consumption need not deprive people of goods and services that really matter. To the contrary, life’ most meaningful and pleasant activities are often paragons of environmental virtue. The preponderance of things that people name as their most rewarding pastimes are infinitely sustainable. Religious practice, conversation, family and community gatherings, theater, music, dance, literature, sports, poetry, artistic and creative pursuits, education, and appreciation of nature all fit readily into a culture of permanence – a way of life that can endure through countless generations." - Alan Thein Durning
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison
"Most people see what is, and never see what can be." - Albert Einstein
"The more cruel the wrong that men commit against an individual or a people, the deeper their hatred and contempt for their victim. Conceit and false pride on the part of a nation prevent the rise of remorse for its crime." - Albert Einstein
"Life is livable because we know that whatever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos." - Havelock Ellis, fully Henry Havelock Ellis
"The only sin which people never forgive in each other is difference of opinion." - Lydian Emerson, also Lidian Emerson, born Lydia Jackson
"How well people manage their emotions determines how effectively they can use their intellectual ability." - Seymour Epstein
"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." - Henry Fehren
"In your daily life, you can treat people you meet in a way that strengthens them in spirit through genuine interest or respect… not a patronizing or false sense of sincerity… but rather a genuine curiosity and respect for each individual you meet… Your actions do make a lasting impact on each person you encounter. It’s an enormous responsibility to take seriously how you treat the people in your life, and a great joy to know you have acted with caring, warmth, and love." - Leonard Felder
"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." - Leonard Felder
"A person [man] who experiences no genuine satisfaction in life does not want peace. People court war to escape meaninglessness and boredom to be relieved of fear and frustration." - Nels F. S. Ferré, fully Nels Fredrick Solomon Ferré
"Human life is a sad show, undoubtedly: ugly, heavy and complex. Art has no other end, for people of feeling, than to conjure away the burden and bitterness." - Gustave Flaubert
"Intemperate eating kills more people than tobacco and alcohol, because it is the most widespread fault… If people knew how to eat properly they would retain their youthful resiliency much longer." - Henry Ford
"There are always two kinds of people in the world – those who pioneer and those who plod. The plodders always attack the pioneers. They say that the pioneers have gobbled up all the opportunity, when, as a plain matter of fact, the plodders would have nowhere to plod had not the pioneers first cleared the way." - Henry Ford
"Faith is people’s evolved and evolving ways of experiencing self, others and world (as they construct them) as related to and affected by the ultimate conditions of existence (as they construct them) and of shaping their lives’ purposes and meaning, trusts and loyalties, in light of the character of being, value and power determining the ultimate conditions of existence (as grasped in their operative images – conscious and unconscious of them)." - James W. Fowler III
"A covenant is a contract. When two people enter into a covenant, it means that one party undertakes to do certain things provided the other party does certain other things. Thus it is a mutual agreement… If you think only kindly, , optimistic, and constructive thoughts, if you will speak only positive and helpful words at all times, if you will do only good and constructive deeds, you will be fulfilling your side of the great covenant – and in no circumstances could God fail to fulfill His." - Emmet Fox
"Do we not learn from suffering? Yes, often; and some people will learn only in that way; but we still learn by overcoming and not by encouraging or accepting the negative thing. The man who accepts his trouble “with resignation” is not learning; he is steeping himself in more error." - Emmet Fox
"The present moment is never intolerable. It is always what is coming in five minutes or five days that makes people despair. The Law of Life is to live in the present, and this applies to both time and place. Keep your attention to the present moment, and in the place where your body is now." - Emmet Fox
"When you give your attention to anything, you are building that thing into your consciousness, for good or evil. When you are faced with some negative condition in your own life, the scientific way to handle it is to withdraw your attention form it by building the opposite into your subconscious, and when you have done this the undesirable thing falls away like an overripe fruit... Don’t tear away people’s crutches (or your own). When they are no longer needed they will fall away. Dissolve the need." - Emmet Fox
"Is not hope of being one day able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labor and industry? May not luxury, therefore, produce more than it consumes, if without such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent?" - Benjamin Franklin
"Most people return small Favors, acknowledge middling ones, and repay great ones with Ingratitude." - Benjamin Franklin
"In their unrestrained eagerness to possess, the oppressors develop the conviction that it is possible for them to transform everything into objects of their purchasing power; hence their strictly materialistic concept of existence. Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal… To the oppressor consciousness, the humanization of the “others,” of the people, appears not as the pursuit of full humanity, but as subversion." - Paulo Freire
"People should not strive to eliminate their complexes, but to get in accord with them; they are legitimately what directs their contacts with the world." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people’s behavior, it would all make sense." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
"Once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in a society, millions of people will believe in it rather than feel ostracized and isolated." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel people to unfold their powers." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"Not every age is an age of heroes. In order for there to be such larger-than-life figures among us, there must be great social causes, such as just wars or liberation movements that call for extraordinary leadership. Otherwise there are no heroic niches to be filled, and we look elsewhere – to business, sports, entertainment – for people to admire." - Robert W. Fuller, fully Robert Works Fuller
"At the bottom, people tend to believe that class is defined by the amount of money you have. In the middle, people grant that money has something to do with it, but think education and the kind of work you do almost equally important. Nearer the top, people perceive that taste, values, ideas, style, and behavior are indispensable criteria of class, regardless of money or occupation or education." - Paul Fussell
"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous." - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
"Radicalism is a label that is always applied to people who are endeavoring to get freedom." - Marcus Garvey
"I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need to impress people they dislike." - Emile Gavreau, fully Emile Henry Gavreau
"The most powerful thing you can do to change the world is to change your own beliefs about the nature of life, people and reality to something more positive… and begin to act accordingly." - Shakti Gawain