This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Consciousness, which is the principle of liberty, is not the principle of art. We listen badly to a symphony when we know we are listening. We think badly when we know we are thinking. Consciousness of thinking is not thought.
Art | Consciousness | Liberty | Listening | Thinking | Thought | Think |
To be ambitious of true honor and of the real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, place, ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court.
Glory | Honor | Little | Nature | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue |
No poet, no artist, of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them.
Aesthetic | Appreciation | Art | Contrast | Criticism | Meaning | Necessity | Order | Work | Appreciation | Art | Value |
Everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.
Justice |
It must be a peace without victory... Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just.
Equality | Memory | Mind | Nations | Peace | Resentment | Rest | Right | Sacrifice |
The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
The realization that everyone perceives things differently, whether greatly or slightly, is a very important principle for dealing effectively with others. The greater your understanding of someone else’s perception of reality, the greater your ability to communicate effectively with him.
Ability | Important | Perception | Reality | Understanding |
The first principle of Positive morality is the preponderance of social sympathy.
Thoughts and actions are good, when they make us, morally and spiritually, more capable of realizing the God who is ours, imminently in every soul and transcendently as that universal principle in which we live and move and have our being. They are bad when they tend to reinforce the barriers which stand between God and our souls, or the souls of other beings.
The law... must have a principle of growth.
You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
Learn |
Without compassion, we will never know anyone or anything, not even our own story. Too much judgment, too many ideas and attitudes will stand in the way of the fundamental principle that we are similar to, connected with, and part of everything else.
Compassion | Ideas | Judgment | Story | Will |
The primal principle of democracy is the worth and dignity of the individual
In a Nutshell: Six Ways to Make People Like You – Principle 1: Become genuinely interested in other people. Principle 2: Smile. Principle 3: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Principle 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Principle 5: Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. Principle 6: Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.