This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
When we aren’t alert, we miss opportunities to improve ourselves. We should always watch for circumstances or situations that can help or harm us and be eager to learn from these encounters.
Circumstances | Harm | Learn |
Consider who you are working with: Part of the art of leadership is discovering the unique relationship between the needs of the individual and the organization. People only know that you and the organization intend to meet their needs when you tell them so. Determine how to help the person, tell them how you will do it, and follow through – before asking the individual to do things in return for you. People working together ultimately succeed or fail based on their commitment to one another. Never give up easily on one of your people; it does a disservice to that individual and to you.
Art | Commitment | Individual | Organization | People | Relationship | Unique | Will | Art | Leadership |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
Sincerity may not help us make friends, but it will help us keep them.
Will |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
Don't judge what your people want to tell you before they've told you. Listen to them. Part of your job as a leader is to help your people figure out what they're most passionate about, and then to help them pursue it.
John Kotter, fully John Paul Kotter
People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.
John L. Lewis, fully John Llewellyn Lewis
The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak. The strength of a strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate thing in life is that strong men do not remain strong. And it is just as true of unions and labor organizations as is true of men and individuals. And whereas today the craft unions of this country may be able to stand upon their own feet and like mighty oaks stand before the gale, defy the lightning, yet the day may come when those organizations will not be able to withstand the lightning and the gale. Now, prepare yourselves by making a contribution to your less fortunate brethren... Organize the unorganized!
I find it hard to imagine why God would want creatures like us solely to serve him: it's not as though he's in need of domestic help or anything like that. It also seems unnervingly close in attitude to the people who for many centuries thought it was simply their role in life to work for the aristocracy and the upper classes. To take pride in one's lowly position and to see that as confirming meaning on one's life seems to me indicative of what Nietzsche called 'slave mortality': sanctifying what is in reality an unfortunate position so as to make that place seem much more desirable than it really is.
God | Life | Life | Meaning | Need | People | Position | Pride | Reality | Thought | Work | God | Thought |
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
Confidence | Day | Failure | Problems | Failure |
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
Acceptance | Criticism | Discussion | Think |
Kofi Annan, fully Kofi Atta Annan
Founded on the principles of private initiative, entrepreneurship and self-employment, underpinned by the values of democracy, equality and solidarity, the co-operative movement can help pave the way to a more just and inclusive economic order.
Equality | Principles |
Chögyam Trungpa, fully Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
We leave our homeland, our property and our friends. We give up the familiar ground that supports our ego, admit the helplessness of ego to control its world and secure itself. We give up our clingings to superiority and self-preservation...It means giving up searching for a home, becoming a refugee, a lonely person who must depend on himself...Fundamentally, no one can help us. If we seek to relieve our loneliness, we will be distracted from the path. Instead, we must make a relationship with loneliness until it becomes aloneness.
Control | Ego | Giving | Loneliness | Means | Property | Relationship | Superiority | Will | World |
Cheerfulness is a very great help in fostering the virtue of charity. Cheerfulness itself is a virtue.
Cheerfulness | Virtue | Virtue |
Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, help us to see that without the dust the rainbow would not be.
We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young.
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.