This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is ... death!
Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church.
William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
Ecological footprint analysis (EFA) was introduced explicitly to reopen the debate on human carrying capacity (Rees 1992, 1996; Rees and Wackernagel 1994, Wackernagel and Rees 1996). Indeed, the method gains much of its analytic strength by inverting the standard carrying capacity ratio. If carrying capacity asks ‘how large a population can a particular area support’ (a question that can be rendered seemingly irrelevant by trade) EFA asks ‘how large an area is required to support a particular population’ (a question that includes those areas that are effectively ‘imported’ through trade). Answering this second question enables any population to compare its total biophysical demand on Earth to the biocapacity of its domestic land-base, thus revealing the extent to which that population is living beyond its local ecological means. EFA also allows the population to assess the proposition that its consumption patterns are ‘decoupling’ from nature—i.e., a sequential time series of EFAs will reveal whether the population’s lifestyles are really becoming less material-intensive and more ecological benign.
Capacity | Earth | Method | Question | Strength | Time | Will |
William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel
People are intelligent beings capable of responding rationally to new knowledge particularly if it can be shown to be directly relevant to their own circumstances. For this reason, the eco-footprint concept resonates better with the public than do more abstract and impersonal sustainability indicators. In particular, people appreciate the way EFA draws them into reflecting on their personal consumption habits as illustrated by the popularity of EFA-oriented web-sites that offer simple calculators that visitors can use to estimate their personal eco-footprints. Attributes of EFA that help to communicate biophysical reality to the public include the following: The method is conceptually simple and intuitively appealing. Even sceptics recognize that that they have a positive ecological footprint. EFA personalizes sustainability by focusing on consumption—everyone is a consumer and must ultimately take responsibility for his/her own ‘load’ on the planet. EFA consolidates measurable energy and material flows into a single concrete variable, the corresponding appropriated land/water (ecosystem) area. Land itself is a powerful indicator. Everyone understands ‘land.’ (Popular understanding of the ecological crisis is prerequisite to any politically viable solutions.) Eco-footprint estimates can be compared to finite local and global ‘supplies’ of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (i.e., people and populations can compare their demands to available bio-capacity). The ‘ecological deficit’—the difference between domestic bio-capacity and a larger eco-footprint—requires little explanation and many people see it as more important than the fiscal deficits with which their governments are often preoccupied! EFA appeals to both the ecologically and socially conscious. For example, it reflects gross material inequity but also shows that growth is not a sustainable option to relieve it. Perhaps as important as any other factor, ‘ecological footprint’ is a powerfully evocative metaphor—would people be as quickly captivated by the concept had it been called the ‘human impact index’ instead?
Abstract | Better | Energy | Global | Growth | Important | Knowledge | Little | Method | People | Popularity | Public | Reality | Responsibility | Understanding | Crisis |
But you've heard him speak about Saddam. For every question we put to the president about domestic needs he has one answer: attack Iraq, attack Iraq, attack Iraq. Psychologists would call this the obsessive-compulsive syndrome.
Question |
So when the only domestic social policy is tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans, we say, 'Where is faith being put into action here'
You can't be evangelical and associate yourself with Jesus and what he says about the poor and just have no other domestic concerns than tax cuts for wealthy people.
This strengthens a belief which I have long cherished, that in a few centuries women will be the larger, stronger sex, admired for their biceps and superfluous hair, and that men will be their toys and domestic comforters, exciting tenderness in the female breast by their small feet, pretty soft hands, and general helplessness. I do not think I have a heart, for I have never been able to locate my pulse, or any other symptom of a circulatory system, but I am willing to share any of the benefits of male delicacy.
Belief | Men | Tenderness | Will | Think |
I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.
Attainment | Commerce | Elegance | Happy | Knowledge | Study | Time | Commerce |
Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Yet when it rules in the name of the Constitution, whether it rules truly or not, the Court is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy. The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal.
Absolute | Disdain | Government | Guidance | Incompetence | Principles | Understanding | Government | Guidance |
John Denham, fully Sir John Denham
'T is in worldly accidents, As in the world itself, where things most distant Meet one another: Thus the east and west, Upon the globe a mathematical point Only divides: Thus happiness and misery, And all extremes, are still contiguous.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The future doesn't belong to the faint of heart. It belongs to the brave.
Consequences | Credit | Faith | Value |
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
Now I say this for there are some, much less responsive than this audience here, who do not become ashamed at my words, but even speak at length in defense of their behavior. And if you ask, 'Who is Amos, or Abias, or what is the number of the Prophets or of the Apostles?' they cannot even open their mouth. But with regard to horses and charioteers, they can compose a discourse more cleverly than sophists or rhetors. Furthermore, after all this they say: What harm, now? and What loss? Indeed, it is for this reason that I am groaning, namely because you do not know that the thing is harmful, and have no perception of the evil. God has given you a limited period of life to serve Him, and if you squander it vainly and fruitlessly, and to no purpose, do you still seek to learn what the loss is? If you completely squander your days entirely on Satan's pomps, do you consider that you are not doing anything wrong? Though you ought to spend your entire life in prayers and supplications, while actually you waste your life, fruitlessly and for your damnation, in shouting and tumult and base words and quarreling and unlawful pleasure and deeds of sorcery - even after all this do you ask 'What loss is there?' You are not aware that time must be expended more sparingly than anything else, If you spend gold, you will be able to replenish your supply, but if you lose time you will repair the loss with great difficulty for a small amount has been dispensed to us in the present life. Therefore, if we do not use it as we ought, what shall we say when we depart to the next life?
We ask for State legislation, and we are told to go to the Federal Government; we come to the Federal Government and it is contended that these things rightfully belong to the States. It does not make a particle of difference. If we come here to the Federal Government and ask for remedial legislation, we are told that these things will come when they become a custom, and not by legislation. And then we go to employers, to their companies, and ask them to confer with us in order to inaugurate that custom, and they tell us, If you do not get out of here we will put a boot in the place where it will feel uncomfortable. If we strike or ask that the matter be submitted to arbitration, we are told there is nothing to arbitrate. If we strike in order to enforce what we believe to be our rights, we are enjoined; and if we exercise what we believe to be our rights in spite of the injunction, we are guilty of contempt of court and are put in the jug during his honor's pleasure. There is not anywhere we can go for the purpose of trying to bring about some remedy, some change, some improvement but we are met by the same opposition, prompted by the same cause, prompted by the same motive, and that is to leave the workingman helpless to the mercy of the employing class. I think, though, I may say that that time has gone by. The workingmen of our country have learned somewhat of their rights, and they propose to stand by them, and they have the courage to do so, too.
In this country my Lords... the individual subject... 'has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them'
Affliction | Character | Distinguish | Feelings | Man | Perfection | Sensibility | Society | Suffering | Friendship | Society | Blessed |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.