This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Don’t be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there’s no poverty to be seen because the poverty’s been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces.
Better | Gold | Inequality | People | Poverty | Reason | Will | World | Worth |
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.
Worth |
Things to remember: 1) The worth of character; 2) The improvement of talent; 3) The influence of example; 4) The joy of origination; 5) The dignity of simplicity; 6) The success of perseverance... More things to remember: 7) The value of time; 8) The pleasure of working; 9) The obligation of duty; 10) The power of kindness; 11) The wisdom of economy; 12) The virtue of patience.
Dignity | Improvement | Influence | Joy | Obligation | Pleasure | Power | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Value |
All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
Mary McLeod Bethune, fully Mary Jane McLeod Bethune
The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.
People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a project. Always have something ahead of you to ''look forward to'' / to work for and hope for.
Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre
Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.
Michelangelo, aka Michaelangelo Buonarroti, fully Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni NULL
The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Love God and find him within - the only treasure worth finding.
Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell
I saw that you'd buy a PC for about $3,000, and inside that PC was about $600 worth of parts. IBM would buy most of these parts from other companies, assemble them, and sell the computer to a dealer for $2,000. Then the dealer, who knew very little about selling or supporting computers, would sell it for $3,000, which was even more outrageous.
Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid - in which case all comment is superfluous - or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem.
Worth |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life. To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them.
Attention | Care | Curiosity | Day | Energy | Enough | Good | Habit | Skill | Work | World | Worth | Learn |
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
I do not deny that what happened to us is a thing worth laughing at. But it is not worth telling, for not everyone is sufficiently intelligent to be able to see things from the right point of view.
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
I want [education] vouchers to be…available to everyone. They should contain few or no restrictions on how they can be used. We need a system in which the government says to every parent: “Here is a piece of paper you can use for the educational purposes of your child. It will cover the full cost per student at a government school. It is worth X dollars towards the cost of educational services that you purchase from parochial schools, private for-profit schools, private nonprofit schools, or other purveyors of educational services. You may add from your own funds to the voucher if you wish to and can afford to.
Cost | Government | Need | System | Will | Worth | Government |
And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always a sketch. No sketch is not quite the right word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch of nothing, an outline with no picture.
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
It is worth discussing radical changes, not in the expectation that they will be adopted promptly but for two other reasons. One is to construct an ideal goal, so that incremental changes can be judged by whether they move the institutional structure toward or away from that ideal. The other reason is very different. It is so that if a crisis requiring or facilitating radical change does arise, alternatives will be available that have been carefully developed and fully explored.
Change | Expectation | Reason | Will | Worth | Crisis | Expectation |