This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than “politicians” think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas (and because it constantly produces them) that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.
Birth | Books | Earth | Events | Ideas | Rule | Teach | World |
There is nothing more difficult, than to please all People, not more easie and common than to censure Books that come abroad in the World. All Books, without exception, that see the light, run the common Risk of both these inconveniences, though they may be sheltered under the most sublime Protection, what will become of this little Book then, which hath no Patronage? The Subject whereof being mystical, and not well-seasoned; carries along with it the common censure, and will seem insipid? Kind Reader, if you understand it not, be not therefore apt to censure the same. The Natural Man may hear and read these Spiritual Matters, but he can never comprehend them.
Books | Censure | Little | Man | Nothing | Risk | Will | Understand |
Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa NULL
When I realize everything’s equality I forget all about my close friends and my relatives It’s OK to forget the objects of your attachment. When I realize wisdom beyond thought I forget everything included in perceiver and perceived It’s OK to forget these causes of happiness and pain. Beyond memory, beyond feelings I forget all about experiences, the good ones and the bad It’s OK to forget them, they just go up and down. When I know the three kayas are present naturally I forget all about the deity’s generation stage practice It’s OK to forget the Dharma made of concepts. When I realize the result’s inside of me I forget all about the results you have to strive and strain to get It’s OK to forget the Dharma of the relative truth. Meditating on the key instructions I forget all other explanations and their conventional terms It’s OK to forget the Dharma that makes you arrogant. When I realize appearances are my texts I forget all about those big books with their letters in black It’s OK to forget the Dharma that’s just a heavy load.
Books | Equality | Feelings | Good | Practice | Present | Thought | Wisdom | Friends | Happiness | Thought |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the text books long after I am gone.
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
Why has there been so great a shift in the attitudes of the public [toward accepting free market ideas]? I’m sorry to confess that I do not believe it occurred because of the persuasive power of such books as Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom or Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged or our own Capitalism and Freedom. Such books certainly played a role, but I believe the major reason for the change is the extraordinary force of factual evidence.…The great hopes that had been placed in Russia and China by the collectivists and socialists turned into ashes.…Similarly, the hopes that were placed in Fabian socialism and the welfare state in Britain or the New Deal in the United States were disappointed. One major government program after another started with the very best aims and with noble objectives and turned out not to deliver the goods.…Ideas played their part. But they played their part not by producing a reaction against the spread of government but by determining the form that that reaction took. The role we play as intellectuals is not to persuade anybody but to keep options open and to provide alternative policies that can be adopted when people decide they have to make a change.
Aims | Books | Capitalism | Change | Force | Government | Objectives | People | Play | Power | Public | Reason | Government |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time.
Books |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
Contemplate the workings of this world, listen to the words of the wise, take all that is good as your own. With this as your base, open your own door to truth. Do not overlook the truth that is right before you. Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything-even mountains, rivers, plants, and trees-should be your teacher.
Books | Good | Right | Study | Truth | Wise | Words | Learn |
We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country we bought lands from the Arabs. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat — in the place of Jibta, Sarid — in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua — in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
The ancient books are everything I want; their wisdom is the balm that soothes my pain. With them I keep sweet company, my own true circle, and my trusty friends. They are my sea of wisdom, where I plunge and bring up pearls to ornament the throat of time. My heart and eyes get true delight from them, and to them in return my lips give hymns, Incense, sweetness, light, and song to breath and tongue, to ear and eye; they elevate me, give me pride; my thoughts are all of them until I die.
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.
Books | Good | Nothing | Sense | Teach | World | Learn | Truths |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
All books will become light in proportion as you find light in them.
We came to this country, which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Jewish state. Jewish villages were built in the place of the Arab villages. You don't even know the names of the Arab villages, because those geography books no longer exist. Not only the books do not exist, the Arab villages are not there either -- there is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
Books |
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
The things you know best are: first, those you know intuitively; second, those you've learned from experience; third, those you've learned not from but through books and the ideas they've inspired in you; and finally, those you've learned in books and from your teachers.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
Foolish, ignorant and vicious persons go to books for their thoughts and judgments, and for all their elevated and noble sentiments, just as a rich woman goes with her money to a draper.
It is easy to lose confidence in our natural ability to raise children. The true techniques for raising children are simple: Be with them, play with them, talk to them. You are not squandering their time no matter what the latest child development books say about "purposeful play" and "cognitive learning skills."
Ability | Books | Children | Confidence | Learning | Play | Time | Child |
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.
Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading. He did not permit it and would fly in a rage when he caught me in the act. He hid the candles when he found that I was reading in secret. He did not want me to spoil my eyes. But I obtained tallow, made the wicking and cast the sticks into tin forms, and every night I would bush the keyhole and the cracks and read, often till dawn.