This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is not even one single thing we value when we restrict the question to ethical values. Instead, there is a plurality of different things we value, but in ethics and in life in general. In life we value pleasure, human interaction, achievement and contact with reality. In ethics we value human flourishing but also commitment and justice per se… No single set of rules seems adequate to the irreducible plurality of incommensurable things that we value.
Achievement | Commitment | Ethics | Justice | Life | Life | Pleasure | Question | Reality | Value |
Ron Leifer, fully Ronald Leifer
Most of the inmates of mental hospitals have been committed as the result of a petition by a family member. Psychiatric commitment is often the result of an acute or prolonged family disruption, which results in the exclusion and isolation of one member (usually the least powerful). Psychiatric commitment therefore serves to relieve intolerable family conflicts by removing one member from the group.
Commitment | Family | Isolation |
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Aggression | Love | Mankind | Method | Need | Oppression | Retaliation | Revenge | Time |
What the schools can teach is what we value as a community… love, empathy, caring, cooperation, commitment to others, spiritual and ethical sensitivity, respect for difference, self-discipline, tolerance and honesty.
Commitment | Cooperation | Discipline | Empathy | Honesty | Love | Respect | Self | Teach | Respect | Value |
The quality of a person’s life is directly proportional to the degree of responsibility he takes for his own life and the commitment he makes to change for the better. Don’t be afraid of pains and sufferings. They are divine gifts for our growth.
Better | Change | Commitment | Growth | Life | Life | Responsibility | Afraid |
Reflection is easy and commitment is easy; but the two together - that is an educational task demanding the highest powers.
Commitment | Reflection |
Douglas Meeks, also M. Douglas Meeks
Economic oppression cannot exist without its religious justifications.
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
The true problems of living – in politics, economics, education, marriage, etc. – are always problems of overcoming or reconciling opposites. They are divergent problems and have no solution in the ordinary sense of the word. They demand of man not merely the employment of his reasoning powers but the commitment of his whole personality.
Commitment | Economics | Education | Man | Marriage | Personality | Politics | Problems | Sense |
National leaders who find themselves wilting under the withering criticisms by members of the media, would do well not to take such criticism personally but to regard the media as their allies in keeping the government clean and honest, its services efficient and timely, and its commitment to democracy strong and unwavering.
Commitment | Criticism | Democracy | Government | Regard | Government |
You know how to take charge of your life and transform yourself into the person you want to be, all you have to do is make the commitment to yourself and believe in yourself enough to keep your commitment.
Commitment | Enough | Life | Life |
A good case can be made for the proposition that, although involved or passionate commitment to some cause or ideal is normally healthy and happiness-producing, devout, pious, or fanatic commitment to the same kind of cause or ideal is potentially pernicious and frequently (though not always) does much more harm than good.
Cause | Commitment | Good | Harm | Pious |
Al Gore, Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr.,
What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our national distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations.
Commitment | Democracy | Devotion | Distrust | Evil | Good | History | Law | Nations | Openness | People | Power | Rule | System |
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Commitment | Excellence | Life | Life | Excellence |
I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life's greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent.
Commitment | Life | Life |
True commitment begins when we reach the point of not knowing how we can possibly go on, and decide to do it anyway.
Commitment | Knowing |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'
Argument | Belief | Education | Faith | Force | Reason | Will | Think |
The ‘great’ commitment is so much easier than the ordinary everyday one - and can all too easily shut our hearts to the latter. A willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice can be associated with, and even produce, a great hardness of heart.
Commitment | Heart | Sacrifice |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
The persecution of genius fosters its influence.
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guides of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Piety |