This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
From the standpoint of the typical modern, Protestantism and Renaissance are merely two different movements in the direction of individual freedom, the only difference between them being that the latter is a little more congenial to the modern spirit than the former. The real significance of the two movements lies in the fact that one represents the final development of individuality within terms of the Christian religion and the other an even further development of individuality beyond the limits set in the Christian religion, that is, the development of the autonomous individual. It is this autonomous individual who really ushers in modern civilization and who is completely annihilated in the final stages of that civilization.
Civilization | Individual | Individuality | Little | Religion | Spirit |
René Dubos, fully René Jules Dubos
It is often by a trivial, even an anecdotal decision, that we direct our activities into a certain channel, and thus determine which of the potential expressions of our individuality become manifest. Usually we know nothing of the ultimate orientation or of the outlet toward which we travel, and the stream sweeps us to a formula of life from which there is no returning. Every decision is like a murder, and our march forward is over the stillborn bodies of all our possible selves that will never be.
For them, in a time when the individual has lost significance (despite loud assertions to the contrary), an informed, rational, and intellectually adventurous individuality must take precedence over all else. In their seeming disunion lies their real strength.
Individual | Individuality | Time |
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
If we can simply distinguish between the different successive stages of evolution, it is possible to see primeval events within the earthly events of the present.
Ancestry | Individuality | Influence | Order | Parents | Rest | Right | Work | Child |
Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
Those who judge human beings according to generic characteristics only reach the boundary, beyond which people begin to be beings whose activity is based on free self-determination....Characteristics of race, tribe, ethnic group and gender are subjects for special sciences....But all these sciences cannot penetrate through to the special nature of the individual. Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends.
Individual | Individuality | People | Personality | Understanding | Will |
It is true that the Constitution of the A. F. of L., at the present time provides against the issuance of two charters to Central bodies in any one city and applies equally to white men as to colored. But the matter is seriously considered that under the circumstances, such as they obtained in New Orleans and in several other points in the South, that is, where white workingmen are organized and object to the colored workmen becoming members of the union, or to receive colored delegates from workmen's unions in the Central bodies, it would be advisable not only to form unions of colored workmen but to have some Central organization where they could have an opportunity of discussing and promoting their interests generally, while, at the same time, of course, acting in a common polity as to the best interest of all.
Association | Individual | Individuality | Labor | Rights | Association |
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
In the clock's over-loud ticking we hear the mockery of light-years for the span of our existence.
Age | Individuality | Question |
Theodore Dreiser, fully Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser
He had sought to be as retiring and cautious as possible. For - after that and while connected with the club, he had been taken with the fancy of trying to live up to the ideals with which the seemingly stern face of that institution had inspired him - conservatism - hard work - saving one’s money - looking neat and gentlemanly. It was such an Eveless paradise, that.
Action | Control | Individuality | Means | People | Sense | Wants | Will |
Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.
Individuality | Kill | Men |
The moral evil in the world is due to man’s alienation from the deepest truth, from the springs of spiritual life within himself, to his alienation from God. Those who realize this try desperately to persuade and enlighten their brothers.
Individuality | Personality | World |
W. T. Stace, fully Walter Terence Stace
His point [the absolutist] is that although what people think right varies in different countries and period, yet what actually is right is everywhere and always the same.
Ethics | Experience | Feelings | Individual | Individuality | Love | Men | Mystical | Position | Self | Sympathy | Will |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The first step towards the emancipation of the people from this penal servitude is the confiscation of the landed estates, the introduction of workers’ control and the nationalization of the banks. The next steps will be the nationalization of the factories, the compulsory organization of the whole population in consumers’ societies, which are at the same time societies for the sale of products, and the state monopoly of the trade in grain and other necessities.
Democracy | Individuality | Revolution | Will |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
My constant embarrassment is to restrain the emotions that are inside of me. You may not believe it, but I sometimes feel like the fire from a far from extinct volcano, and if the lava does not seem to spill over it is because you are not high enough to see into the basin and see the caldron boil.
Business | Choice | Individual | Individuality | Men | Business |
However inadequate our ideas of causal efficacy may be, we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas and feelings have it, than the Automatists are when they say they haven’t it. As in the night all cats are gray, so in the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes are obscure. But one has no right to pull the pall over the psychic half of the subject only . . . whilst in the same breath one dogmatizes about material causation as if Hume, Kant, and Lotze had never been born.
Abstract | Individuality | Majority | Space |
When private virtue is hazarded on the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre.
Individuality | Mind |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
A child needs your love most when he deserves it least
Individuality | Child |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
A child develops individuality long before he discovers taste
Individuality | Need | Child |
Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara
The task of educating and feeding youngsters, the task of educating the army, the task of distributing the lands of the former absentee landlords to those who laboured every day upon that same land without receiving its benefits, are accomplishments of social medicine.
Darkness | Individuality | Light | Little | Silence | Space |