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
In our culture we make heroes of the men who sit on top of a heap of money, and we pay attention not only to what they say in their field of competence, but to their wisdom on every other question in the world.
Attention | Competence | Culture | Men | Money | Question | Wisdom | World |
Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
We cannot live by power, and a culture that seeks to live by it becomes brutal and sterile. But we can die without it.
Michael Harrington, fully Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington
There are tens of millions of Americans who are beyond the welfare state. Taken as a whole there is a culture of poverty... bad health, poor housing, low levels of aspiration and high levels of mental distress. Twenty per cent of a nation, some 32,000,000.
Aspiration | Culture | Distress | Health | Poverty | Aspiration |
Noam Chomsky, fully Avram Noam Chomsky
Every aspect of the culture implicitly involves an expression of what a "proper" life and a "proper" set of values are, and that's all indoctrination.
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
Religion is the substance of culture, and culture the form of religion.
By the time you rise through the ranks, the culture of homogenization has bred the spirit and imagination out of you.
Culture | Imagination | Spirit | Time |
It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation, all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture.
Association | Conversation | Culture | Habit | Mind | Property | Spirit | Association |
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Better | Conformity | Conspiracy | Culture | Liberty | Self | Self-reliance | Society | Surrender | Virtue | Virtue | Society |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
There has never been a time when civilization stood more in need of individuals who are genuinely culture conscious, who can see objectively the social behaviors of other peoples without fear and recrimination.
Civilization | Culture | Fear | Need | Time |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
No individual can arrive even at the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates. Conversely, no civilization has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of an individual.
Civilization | Culture | Individual |
Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
Conscience | Culture | Doubt | Ideas | Literature | Men | Nothing |
How can man be intelligent, happy, or useful, without the culture and discipline of education? It is this that unlocks the prison-house of his mind, and releases the captive.
Culture | Discipline | Man |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
What most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.
Humans have the ability to act consciously, and collectively, [exercising foresight to] choose their own evolutionary path. In our crucial epoch we cannot leave the selection of the next step in the evolution of human society and culture to chance. We must plan for it, consciously and purposefully.
Ability | Culture | Evolution | Foresight | Plan | Society | Society |
The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.