This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I have sometimes a queer mystical feeling as regards the attitude of people in general. Just as there are physical diseases, so there are diseases of feelings. In a little town like this I feel that on some days everyone goes about hating everyone else. Then something happens and a good feeling comes back. I think the whole of mankind must be like that.
Feelings | Good | Little | Mankind | Mystical | People | Wisdom | Think |
Look at our present life circumstances, whatever they may be, as the raw material of our learning... We must stop regarding ourselves as victims of circumstances, and start to acknowledge that we are not here purely by accident. The master within is trying to help us wake up by confronting us with our current life situation, which contains all the lessons we need to learn in order to grow into more fully developed human beings.
Accident | Character | Circumstances | Learning | Life | Life | Need | Order | Present | Learn |
Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
Materialism is decadent and degenerate only if the spirit of the nation has withered and if individual people are so unimaginative that they wallow in it.
Individual | Materialism | People | Spirit | Wisdom |
Theodore H. White, fully Theodore Harold White
Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them - this is of the essence of leadership.
Character | Man | People | Power | Responsibility |
Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.
Experience | People | Time | Wisdom | Trouble |
To say that people have a moral sense is not the same thing as saying that they are innately good. A moral sense must compete with other senses that are natural to humans - the desire to survive, acquire possessions, indulge in sex, or accumulate power - in short, with self-interest narrowly defined. How that struggle is resolved will differ depending on our character, our circumstances, and the cultural and political tendencies of the day. But saying that a moral sense exists is the same thing as saying that humans, by their nature, are potentially good.
Character | Circumstances | Day | Desire | Good | Nature | People | Possessions | Power | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Struggle | Will |
The super-businessmen have to a large extent failed to see that the need for morality in the people they practically govern is greater than ever, because social relations are infinitely more delicate and complex in adjustment than heretofore.
Ride your emotions as a scallop rides the waves; don't get upset among them. There are people who enjoy getting swamped emotionally just as, incredibly, there are people who enjoy getting drunk.
Not everybody trust paintings but people believe photographs.
People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest. People with interests are never bores!
One need remain in hell no longer than he chooses to; and the moment he chooses not to remain longer, not all the powers in the universe can prevent his leaving it. One can rise to any heaven he himself chooses; and when he chooses so to rise, all the higher powers of the universe combine to help him heavenward.