This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman
Religion is proposed not as a transcendent revelation of the nature of man and the world, but as a means of weathering the storms of life, or of deepening one’s spiritual existence, or of preserving the social order, or of warding off anxiety.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Existence | Life | Life | Man | Means | Nature | Order | Religion | Revelation | World |
Mahavagga of the Vinaya Texts NULL
This middle path… is the noble path, namely: right views, right intent, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness, right meditation… Which leads to insights, leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to perfect enlightenment, to Nirvana.
Conduct | Enlightenment | Knowledge | Means | Meditation | Mindfulness | Right | Speech | Wisdom |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.
Government | Means | Need | Will | Wise |
A hero… is not a hero until he is recognized as one. This means that the actualization of the hero is a two-way projection. First the hero must project by way of his deeds, his style, his character. When the projection registers, an imaginative process begins to remake the hero to fit as fully as possible the symbolic weight of his image. Legend and myth take over the historical personage, and through either an oral or a written tradition he is reborn in his heroic apotheosis.
Character | Deeds | Hero | Means | Myth | Style | Tradition |
In all ages, literature aims at the interpretation of the universe and a deep perception of humanity by means of language.
Aims | Humanity | Language | Literature | Means | Perception | Universe |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you; and this is done by depriving them of all means of injuring you, or by bestowing such benefits upon them that it would not be reasonable for them to desire any change of fortune.
Change | Desire | Fortune | Government | Means |
Prayer is the best means to uplift our consciousness from the imprisonment of personal gratification to the oneness and union with all beings. Prayer consecrates all our actions, removes ignorance, and leads us to an expanded vision of who we really are and feel the richness of life.
Consciousness | Ignorance | Life | Life | Means | Oneness | Prayer | Vision |
The animosity which Nations reciprocally entertain is nothing more than what the policy of their Governments excites to keep up the spirit of the system. Each Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of Man, but through the medium of a false system of Government.
Ambition | Enemy | Government | Imagination | Intrigue | Man | Means | Nations | Nothing | Perfidy | Policy | Spirit | System | Government |
Boris Pasternak, fully Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
It’s a good thing when a man is different from your image of him. It shows he isn’t a type. If her were, it would be the end of him as a man. But if you can’t place him in a category, it means that at least a part of him is what a human being ought to be. He has risen above himself, he has a grain of immortality.
Good | Immortality | Man | Means |
It is easy to substitute our will for that of a child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when we have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops NULL
Poverty is not merely the lack of adequate financial resources. It entails a more profound kind of deprivation, a denial of full participation in the economic, social, and political life of society and an inability to influence decisions that affect one’s life. It means being powerless in a way that assaults not only one’s pocketbook but also one’s fundamental human dignity. Therefore, we should seek solutions that enable the poor to help themselves through such means as employment. Paternalistic programs which do too much for and too little with the poor are to be avoided.
Dignity | Influence | Life | Life | Little | Means | Poverty | Society | Society |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Morality is primarily a means of preserving the community and saving it from destruction. Next it is a means of maintaining the community on a certain plane and in a certain degree of benevolence.
Benevolence | Means | Morality |