This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches
For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available: either by the absolute indifference of your fellow-men in peace-time, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out.
Absolute | Indifference | Men | Passion | Peace | Time | War | Wisdom | World |
Carl von Clausewitz, fully Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, also Karl von Clausewitz
War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.
Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen
There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
There exists a passion for comprehension, just as there exists a passion for music. That passion is rather common in children but gets lost in most people later on. Without this passion, there would be neither mathematics nor natural science.
Children | Mathematics | Music | Passion | People | Wisdom |
It's an old adage that the way to be safe is never to be secure... Each one of us requires the spur of insecurity to force us to do our best.
Force | Insecurity | Safe | Wisdom | Old |
The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.
Experience | Force | Research | Wisdom |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat; it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Courage | Defiance | Force | Foresight | Love | Self | Self-denial | Selfishness | Submission | Wisdom |
We are weak today in ideal matters because intelligence is divorced from aspiration. The bare force of circumstance compels us onwards in the daily detail of our beliefs and acts, but our deeper thoughts and desires turn backwards. When philosophy shall have co-operated with the course of events and made clear and coherent the meaning of the daily detail, science and emotion will interpenetrate, practice and imagination will embrace. Poetry and religious feeling will be the unforced flowers of life. To further this articulation and revelation of the meanings of the current course of events is the task and problem of philosophy in days of transition.
Aspiration | Events | Force | Imagination | Intelligence | Life | Life | Meaning | Philosophy | Poetry | Practice | Revelation | Science | Will | Wisdom | Circumstance |
The central event of the twentieth century is the overthrow of matter. In technology, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth in the form of physical resources is steadily declining in value and significance. The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things.
Economics | Force | Mind | Nations | Politics | Technology | Wealth | Wisdom | Value |