This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Look at our present life circumstances, whatever they may be, as the raw material of our learning... We must stop regarding ourselves as victims of circumstances, and start to acknowledge that we are not here purely by accident. The master within is trying to help us wake up by confronting us with our current life situation, which contains all the lessons we need to learn in order to grow into more fully developed human beings.
Accident | Character | Circumstances | Learning | Life | Life | Need | Order | Present | Learn |
Theodore H. White, fully Theodore Harold White
Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them - this is of the essence of leadership.
Character | Man | People | Power | Responsibility |
Be not content with the commonplace in character anymore than with the commonplace in ambition or intellectual attainment. Do not expect that you will make any lasting or very strong impression on the world through intellectual power without the use of an equal amount of conscience and heart.
Ambition | Attainment | Character | Conscience | Heart | Impression | Power | Will | World | Ambition |
To say that people have a moral sense is not the same thing as saying that they are innately good. A moral sense must compete with other senses that are natural to humans - the desire to survive, acquire possessions, indulge in sex, or accumulate power - in short, with self-interest narrowly defined. How that struggle is resolved will differ depending on our character, our circumstances, and the cultural and political tendencies of the day. But saying that a moral sense exists is the same thing as saying that humans, by their nature, are potentially good.
Character | Circumstances | Day | Desire | Good | Nature | People | Possessions | Power | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Struggle | Will |
The super-businessmen have to a large extent failed to see that the need for morality in the people they practically govern is greater than ever, because social relations are infinitely more delicate and complex in adjustment than heretofore.
Awareness of the inevitability of death need not cause sadness. Rather we can use it to destroy the common worries about inconsequential aspects of life. Many worries are over matters that have no lasting value. When you overcome worry, your mind will be free to think of your ultimate goals in life.
Awareness | Cause | Character | Death | Destroy | Goals | Life | Life | Mind | Need | Sadness | Will | Worry | Think |
Tzu-Ssu or Zisi, born Kong Ji NULL
Sincerity is the fulfillment of our own nature, and to arrive at it we need only follow our true self. Sincerity is the beginning and end of existence; without it, nothing can endure. Therefore the mature person values sincerity above all things.
Beginning | Character | Existence | Fulfillment | Nature | Need | Nothing | Self | Sincerity |
J. L. Austin, fully John Langshaw Austin
Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can re-look at the world without blinkers.
One need remain in hell no longer than he chooses to; and the moment he chooses not to remain longer, not all the powers in the universe can prevent his leaving it. One can rise to any heaven he himself chooses; and when he chooses so to rise, all the higher powers of the universe combine to help him heavenward.
Sharing is the great and imperative need of our time. An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen but greatens his life, especially if sharing be done not formally nor conventionally, but rather with such heartiness as springs out of an understanding of the meaning of the religion of sharing.
Character | Life | Life | Meaning | Need | Religion | Time | Understanding |
Margaret Young, born Margaret Youngblood
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.