This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace.
Brotherhood | Peace |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
While freedom and equality can be legislated, brotherhood cannot. Neighborly love is a spontaneous feeling that can be affected by external information, but cannot be controlled from the outside.
Brotherhood | Equality | Freedom | Love |
The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire make a small amount of heat.
Achievement | Desire | Mind |
For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Achievement | Children | Enjoyment | Success |
Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement of man.
Achievement | Man | Wisdom | Value |
The mystical bond of brotherhood makes all men brothers.
Brotherhood | Men | Mystical |
Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.
Brotherhood | Men | Truth |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Reverence requires imagination and vital warmth; it requires least actual achievement or power. The child is weak and superficially foolish, the teacher is strong, and in an everyday sense wiser than the child. The teacher without reverence, or the bureaucrat without reverence, easily despises the child for these outward inferiorities.
Achievement | Imagination | Power | Reverence | Sense | Child | Teacher |
From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things - the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals - and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue. The animals had rights - the right of man’s protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, and the right to freedom, and the right to man’s indebtedness - and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing. This concept of life and its relations was humanizing, and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all. The Lakota could despise no creature, for all were of one blood, made by the same hand, and filled with the essence of the Great Mystery. In spirit, the Lakota were humble and meek. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” - this was true for the Lakota, and from the earth they inherited secrets long since forgotten. Their religion was sane, natural, and human.
Brotherhood | Despise | Earth | Existence | Force | Freedom | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Man | Mystery | Religion | Reverence | Right | Rights | Safe | Spirit | World | Friends |
Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.
Achievement | Creativity | Fun | Hope | Life | Life | People |
Eddie Rickenbacker, formally Edward Vernon "Eddie" Rickenbacker
If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.
Achievement | Confidence | Death | Life | Life | Will | Think |
When one's body is viewed with scorn and contempt, and one's joy is in the soul alone, this constitutes a direct and simple way to fulfill the commandment "Love your fellow as yourself" toward every Jew, great or small... For the source of their souls is in the One G‑d, and they aredivided only by virtue of their bodies. Therefore, those who give priority to their body over their soul, find it impossible to share true love and brotherhood except that which is conditional on some benefit. This is what Hillel the Elder meant when he said about this commandment [the love of Israel]: "This is the whole Torah; and the rest is commentary." For the foundation and source of all Torah is to elevate and give ascendancy to the soul over the body.
Body | Brotherhood | Joy | Love | Rest | Soul | Virtue | Virtue | Torah |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
The unity in productive (creative) work is not interpersonal; the unity achieved in orgiastic fusion is transitory; the unity achieved by conformity is only pseudo-unity. Hence they are only partial answers to the problem of existence. The full answer lies in the achievement of interpersonal union, of fusion with another person, in love.
Achievement | Conformity | Unity | Work |
Eddie Rickenbacker, formally Edward Vernon "Eddie" Rickenbacker
Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.
Achievement | Confidence | Life | Life |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
In spite of the universalistic spirit of the monotheistic Western religions and of the progressive political concepts that are expressed in the idea "that all men are created equal," love for mankind has not become a common experience. Love for mankind is looked upon as an achievement which, at best, follows love for an individual or as an abstract concept to be realized only in the future. But love for man cannot be separated from love for one individual. To love one person productively means to be related to his human core, to him as representing mankind. Love for one individual, in so far as it is divorced from love for man, can refer only to the superficial and to the accidental; of necessity it remains shallow.
Abstract | Achievement | Individual | Love | Man | Mankind | Means | Men | Necessity | Spirit |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Achievement | Joy |
George T. Lucas, fully George Walton Lucas, Jr.
Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't.