This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Pamela Oliver and Gerald Maxwell
We do not want in any way to imply that professionalized mobilization has replaced "spontaneous" grassroots mobilization. Our arguments have made it clear that we do not think professionalized mobilizations generally can create grassroots mobilizations of volunteers, because mobilizing money is generally inconsistent with mobilizing action. But we also think that the processes through which new actions emerge are still in place and operating, although we seem to be in a "quiet" period. It is nevertheless worth asking whether these professionalized organizations will prove to be irrelevant to grassroots mobilization, supportive of it, or competitive with it
Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized. People just don't have that much vision.
The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity. Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother's own heart.
Cynicism | Effort | Experience | Harmony | Ingratitude | Nature | People | Relationship | Sense | Tenderness | Treachery | Unity | Worth |
Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend
By now many intellectuals regard theoretical or 'objective' knowledge as the only knowledge worth considering. Popper himself encourages the belief by his slander of relativism. Now this conceit would have substance if scientists and philosophers looking for universal and objective morality had succeeded in finding the former and persuaded, rather than forced, dissenting cultures to adopt the latter. This is not the case.
Belief | Knowledge | Morality | Regard | Slander | Worth | Theoretical | Slander |
There are only two things worth aiming for: good music and a clean conscience.
Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
Sooner or later people will learn to recognize your worth — if you have any. Above all, don't sweat over a painting; a great sentiment can be rendered immediately. Dream on it and look for the simplest form in which you can express it.
Paul Samuelson, fully Paul Anthony Samuelson
Every good cause is worth some inefficiency.
Every moment in life is an act of faith… Every moment of searching is a moment of encounter… Esther, however, was the only woman who understood one very simple thing: in order to be able to find her, I first had to find myself… Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring with them a Love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days… Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price.
But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for… But we must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love and in love there are no rules. We try to be guided by a manual, check the heart, have a behavioral strategy ... But that is nonsense. Who decides is the heart, and what he decides is what counts. We've all experienced it in life. Everyone, at some point, we have said in tears: I am suffering for a love that is not worth the pain. We suffer because we found that most of what we receive. We suffer because our love is not recognized. We suffer because we fail to enforce our rules. Unexpectedly suffer, because love is the seed of our growth. The more we love, the closer we are spiritual experience. The truly enlightened, with souls lit by Love, overcame all the prejudices of the time… by taking risks, by risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in your search for love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.
Better | Dreams | Experience | Fighting | Knowing | Love | Search | Suffering | Will | Worth |
Love can take us to heaven or hell, but it always takes us somewhere. Therefore, be prepared to travel… Love does not ask many questions, because if we start thinking began to be afraid. It is an inexplicable fear, and not worth trying to translate it into words. It may be the fear of contempt, unless accepted, to break the spell. It sounds ridiculous, but true. So no wonder: it operates. As you yourself have said many times, take the risks... Love doesn't need to be discussed; it has its own voice and speaks for itself… Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant… Love is fused with the people we love and find a spark of God in him.
Fear | God | Heaven | Love | Need | Nothing | People | Thinking | Will | Worth | God |
The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight… The closer one gets to realizing his destiny, the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being… The completion is always more difficult that the beginning… The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or contemplating life.
Adventure | Attention | Danger | Day | Destiny | Enough | Good | Life | Life | Little | Need | Nothing | People | Reason | Time | Truth | Work | Worth | Danger | Afraid |
If what you found was made from pure matter, it will never spoil. And you can come back one day. If it was just one moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you will find nothing on your return. But you would have seen an explosion of light. And that alone would already be worth the journey.
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born myself... a human being.
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life. If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born, myself a human being.
Earth | Enough | Faith | Heaven | Life | Life | Need | Wonder | Worth | Think |
Among the stars that have a different birth,-- And ever-changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy?
When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid - in which case all comment is superfluous - or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem.
Worth |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
All the science of government, imagined by those who govern, is imbibed with these utopias. But we know men too well to dream such dreams. We have not two measures for the virtues of the governed and those of the governors; we know that we ourselves are not without faults and that the best of us would soon be corrupted by the exercise of power. We take men for what they are worth — and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might — perhaps not strong enough — to put an end to it.
Enough | Government | Hate | Man | Men | Science | Work | Worth | Government |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
Men passionately desire to live after death, but they often pass away without noticing the fact that the memory of a really good person always lives. It is impressed upon the next generation, and is transmitted again to the children. Is that not an immortality worth striving for?
Desire | Good | Immortality | Memory | Worth |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
If on the morrow of the revolution, the masses of the people have only phrases at their service, if they do not recognize, by clear and blinding facts, that the situation has been transformed to their advantage, if the overthrow ends only in a change of persons and formulae, nothing will have been achieved. ... In order that the revolution should be something more than a word, in order that the reaction should not lead us back tomorrow to the situation of yesterday, the conquest of today must be worth the trouble of defending; the poor of yesterday must not be the poor today.
Change | Conquest | Ends | Nothing | Order | People | Revolution | Tomorrow | Will | Worth | Trouble |
The seeker who does not find is still entrapped by his illusion of two worlds: one of perfection that lies beyond, of peace without struggle, of unending joy; the other the everyday meaningless world of pain and evil which is scarcely worth relating himself to. Secretly he longs for the former even as he openly despises the latter. Yet he hesitates to plunge into the teeming Void, into the abyss of his own Primal-nature, because in his deepest unconscious he fears abandoning his familiar world of duality for the unknown world of Oneness, the reality of which he still doubts. The finders, on the other hand, are restrained by neither fears nor doubts. Casting both aside, they leap because they can't do otherwise--they simply must and no longer know why--and so they triumph.
Duality | Evil | Illusion | Pain | Peace | Perfection | Reality | World | Worth |