This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Karl Deutsch, fully Karl Wolfgang Deutsch
The single greatest power in the world today is the power to change... The most recklessly irresponsible thing we could do in the future would be to go on exactly as we have in the past ten or twenty years. I can imagine no more dangerous policy than the conservatism that exists today.
Change | Conservatism | Future | Past | Policy | Power | Wisdom | World |
Moral beauty is the basis of all true beauty. This foundation is somewhat covered and veiled in a nature. Art brings it out, and gives it more transparent forms. It is here and that art, when it knows well its power and resources, engages in a struggle with nature in which it may have the advantage.
Art | Beauty | Nature | Power | Struggle | Wisdom | Art | Beauty |
True conservatism is substantial progress; it holds fast what is true and good in order to advance in both. To cast away the old is not of necessity to attain the new. To reject anything that is valuable, lessens the power of gaining more. That a thing is new does not of course commend; that it is old does not discredit. The test question is, "Is it true or good?"
Conservatism | Good | Necessity | Order | Power | Progress | Question | Wisdom | Old |
We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.
It is a nationalism whose aim is not power but dignity and health. If we did not have to live among intolerant, narrow-minded and violent people, I should be the first to throw over all nationalism in favor of universal humanity.
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
Education... should concern itself primarily... with the liberation, organization, and direction of power and intelligence, with the development of taste, with culture.
Culture | Education | Intelligence | Organization | Power | Taste | Wisdom |
Schools exploit you because they tap your power and use it to perpetuate society’s trip, while they teach you not to respect your own... Schools petrify society because their method, characterized by coercion from the top down, works against any substantial social change... Schools petrify society because students, through them, learn to adjust unquestioningly to institutions.
Change | Coercion | Exploit | Method | Power | Respect | Society | Teach | Wisdom | Society | Respect | Learn |
No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it. Peace is a margin of power around our daily need. Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is an awareness of reserves from beyond ourselves, so that our power is not so much in us as through us.
Awareness | Consciousness | Need | Peace | Power | Wisdom | Awareness |
Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.
Religious faith is not a storm cellar to which men and women can flee for refuge from the storms of life. It is, instead, an inner spiritual strength which enables them to face those storms with hope and serenity. Religious faith has the miraculous power to lift ordinary human beings to greatness in seasons of stress.
Faith | Greatness | Hope | Life | Life | Men | Power | Serenity | Strength | Wisdom |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm.
Control | Good | Harm | Important | Man | Power | Regard | Tomorrow | Wisdom |