This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery
Action | Aesthetic | Innovation | Search |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down … Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.
Better | Business | Commerce | Man | Means | Men | Power | Will | Business | Commerce | Afraid |
Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
The aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
It is... particularly true of constitutional government that its atmosphere is opinion... It does not remain fixed in any unchanging form, but grows with the growth and is altered with the change of the nation's needs and purposes.
Despise | Learning | Seclusion | Society | Study | Society |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
Simon Stimson: ...That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another.
Birth | Generosity | Love | Child |
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
The most important thing you do in your life is to die.
Action | Intelligence | People | Thinking |
If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the...present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.
Advice | Inevitable | People |
Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary
We always have urged people: Don't take LSD unless you are very well prepared, unless you are specifically prepared to go out of your mind. Don't take it unless you have someone that's very experienced with you to guide you through it. And don't take it unless you are ready to have your perspective on yourself and your life radically changed, because you're gonna be a different person, and you should be ready to face this possibility.
Commitment | Consciousness | Detachment | Discovery | World | Discovery |
In young minds there is commonly a strong propensity to particular intimacies and friendships. Youth, indeed, is the season when friendships are sometimes formed which not only continue through succeeding life, but which glow to the last, with a tenderness unknown to the connections begun in cooler years. The propensity, therefore, is not to be discouraged, though, at the same time, it must be regulated with much circumspection and care. Too many of the pretended friendships of youth are mere combinations in pleasure. They are often founded on capricious likings, suddenly contracted and as suddenly dissolved. Sometimes they are the effect of interested complaisance and flattery on the one side, and of credulous fondness on the other. Such rash and dangerous connections should be avoided, lest they afterwards load us with dishonor.
Motives |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
A mockingbird ... was heard to blend the songs of 32 different kinds of birds into a ten minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is - and still not caring.
Choice | Consequences | Freedom | Responsibility | Surrender | Time | Will | Learn |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.
But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required some heavenly music—which even now I do— to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book.
By heaven, he echoes me, as if there were some monster in his thought too hideous to be shown. Othello, Act iii, Scene 3
But heaven hath a hand in these events; to whose high will we bound our calm contents. King Richard II, Act v, Scene 2
Liberty is one of the best of all sublunary advantages. I would willingly therefore communicate knowledge, without infringing, or with as little possible violence to, the volition and individual judgment of the person to be instructed.
Accident | Consideration | Contradiction | Control | Experiment | Father | Indulgence | Little | Man | Means | Mind | Nothing | Passion | Persuasion | Power | Trust | Will | Happiness |