This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
You understand me, or at least you should, that I have not a word to say against socialists as such or socialism as a science or a theory but those in our country who prate the loudest of their socialistic partisanship have rendered the greatest service to the capitalist class they were capable of in antagonizing the trade union movement.
Effort | Enough | Heart | Means | Spirit | Time | Will | Work |
One of the principles for which the American Federation of Labor has declared is the organization of all wage earners irrespective of race, creed, sex, or color. However, realizing the importance of organizing the colored wage earners in every section of the country, not only for their own protection but for the protection of the white wage earners, and realizing still further the feeling which exists in many sections of the country regarding the organization of colored workmen with white workmen, and desirous of avoiding any unnecessary race antagonism, provision was made in the constitution of the A. F. of L. for the organization of unions of colored workmen exclusively wherever such a course might be found to the best interests of the workers themselves and of the movement in general. Not only that, but provision was also made . . . for the organization of Central Labor Unions composed of delegates from local unions of colored workers whenever that might be deemed necessary. Therefore, I would suggest that the word white in . . . your constitution should be omitted. If the question should afterwards arise as to the colored janitors, care takers, and laborers, then if it should be found advisable a separate union of these workers could be organized.
This is the attitude of the A. F. of L. on the color question. If a man or set of men array themselves for any cause against the interest of the workers their organizations have the right to say that their membership is barred. It should be at the wrong-doer against labor, it should not be a nationality or a race against whom the doors are barred.
Conspiracy | Effort | Improvement | Public | Purpose | Purpose | Right | Sentiment | Time |
We recognize the poverty, we know the sweatshop, we can play on every string of the harp, and touch the tenderest chords of human sympathy; but while we recognize the evil and would apply the remedy, our Socialist friends would look forward to the promised land, and wait for the sweet by-and-by. Their statements as to economic ills are right; their conclusions and their philosophy are all askew.
Defense | Effort | Important | Prudence | Prudence | Rights |
We always do what we MOST WANT to do, whether or not we like what we are doing at each instant of our lives. Wanting and liking many times are not the same thing. Many people have done what they say they didn't want to do at a particular moment. And that may be true until one looks deeper into the motivation behind the doing. What they are really saying is the price they will have to pay or the consequences they will have to endure, for not doing that something may be too high or onerous for them not to do it. Such as going to work. Many people say they don't want to go to work and yet they go. Which means they don't want to risk losing their jobs and the negative hurting emotions associated with not having a job. It has been estimated about 90% to 95% of all people work at jobs which are unfulfilling and which they dislike and would leave in a minute if they only knew what they really wanted to do.
Business | Effort | Experience | Fear | Harm | Law | Life | Life | Need | People | Trust | Universe | Will | Work | World | Business |
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
In Japan we have the phrase shoshin, which means beginner's mind. The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind. Suppose you recite the Prajna Paramita Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation. But what would happen to you if you recited it twice, three times, four times, or more? You might easily lose your original attitude towards it. The same thing will happen in your other Zen practices. For a while you will keep your beginner's mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, three years or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of original mind.
Although he Bertrand Russell suffered unpopularity in some quarters for his role as a political dissenter, he enjoyed that role immensely. There was more than a touch of exhibitionism in the riskless sit-downs of his last years when he made well-publicized gestures to ‘Ban the Bomb’ that were as futile as they were ill-advised. I once wondered aloud to him whether his temperamental bias toward nonconformity and dissent was an expression not so much of intellectual courage as of the aristocrat’s disdain of the commoner and his desire to épater le bourgeois. He replied with disarming frankness: ‘Hook, I think you have something there…’
Effort |
In order to be exercised, the intelligence requires to be free to express itself without control by any authority. There must therefore be a domain of pure intellectual research, separate but accessible to all, where no authority intervenes.
Effort | Good | Literature | Psychology | Soul | Thought | Thought |
Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat.
Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
I think I understand how it can make you. We tried to build our love beyond the moment, but only moments are sure. For the rest we need faith, and faith, is it courage or laziness?
Contemplation | Effort | Experience | Quiet | Contemplation | Think |
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
In the world of mind, as in that of matter, we always occupy a position. He who is continually changing his point of view will see more, and that too more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be.
Circumstances | Effort | Friend | Good | Imagination | Little | Pity | Retirement | Traitor | Will |
Angus Wilson, fully Sir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson
God knows how you Protestants can be expected to have any sense of direction,' she said. 'It's different with us. I haven't been to mass for years, I've got every mortal sin on my conscience, but I know when I'm doing wrong. I'm still a Catholic.
Effort |
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
My mind is amenable to any inaction. Give me problems, give me work ... and I'm in my élément.Je can then do without artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I have a craving for excitement mentale. C is why I practice this profession so special, or rather that I created because I am the only the world
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
It was a September evening and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light,--sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light and so back into the gloom once more.
Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian
Men and woman, young and old, rich and poor, the sanguine and despondent, the sick and whole, rulers and ruled, the wise and ignorant, the cowardly and courageous, the wrathful and meek, the successful and failing, do not require the same instruction and encouragement.
Absurd | Care | Day | Desire | Despise | Effort | Freedom | Good | Mercy | Money | Thought | Time | Thought |