This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Very simple ideas are within the reach of only very complicated minds.
Ideas |
Ideas define our place in the universe, our relations with other people; ideas determine what is important and what is not important, what is fair and what is not fair, what is worth believing and what is not worth believing. Ideas give life meaning.
Ideas | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Universe | Worth |
Spiritual teachers emphasize that by abandoning our preconceived ideas and ordinary perceptual filters, we can experience high states of consciousness, inexpressible delight, and a sense of innocence and mystery about existence... the transfiguration of life from a vale of tears into a celebration of truth and beauty.
Beauty | Consciousness | Existence | Experience | Ideas | Innocence | Life | Life | Mystery | Sense | Tears | Truth |
Susan B. Anthony, fully Susan Brownell Anthony
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen
A President does not have to be a great creative or innovative thinker, as helpful as that may be. For an almost endless flow of new ideas will almost certainly come to him and his real task is to discriminate and choose among them. Similarly, he does not personally have to be a great administrator, but he has to choose and guide those who are. He has to be as discriminating in his judgment of men as of ideas.
Zohar or The Zohar, literally "Splendor or Radiance" NULL
A pupil who suggests new ideas to his master is a sage.
Ideas |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
False wit is a fatiguing search after cunning traits, an affectation of saying in enigmas what others have already said naturally, to hang together ideas which are incompatible, to divide that which ought to be united, of seizing false relations.
Affectation | Cunning | Ideas | Search | Wit |
Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
Action releases truth so it can inspire and regenerate; action releases ideas so they can bless and benefit.
Our ideas about life inevitably shape its structure, and, because they are usually too simple, it is wise to reflect on them... simple life axioms... The first is afraid of failure, yet it is surely impossible to have love in your life at all without the possibility of its loss. The second is afraid of self-revelation and vulnerability, and yet how can there be love without an opening of the heart and considerable emotional risk? The third is afraid of mortal love - the knowledge that although love itself may be eternal, the people who love are faced with the inevitable separation of death.
Axioms | Death | Eternal | Failure | Heart | Ideas | Inevitable | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Mortal | People | Revelation | Risk | Self | Wise | Afraid |
W. Somerset Maugham, fully William Somerset Maugham
There are few minds in a century that can look upon a new idea without terror. Fortunately for the rest of us, there are very few new ideas about.
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 |
Dmitri Shostakovich, fully Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich
There can be no music without ideology. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes. Only Beethoven was a forerunner of the revolutionary movement. If you read his letters, you will see how often he wrote to his friends that he wished to give new ideas to the public and rouse it to revolt against its masters.
Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
Conscience | Culture | Doubt | Ideas | Literature | Men | Nothing |
Despite the variety and the differences, and however much we proclaim the contrary, what the media produce is neither spontaneous nor completely “free:” “news” does not just happen, pictures and ideas do not merely spring from reality into our eyes and minds, truth is not directly available, we do not have unrestrained variety at our disposal.
Edward R. Murrow, born Egbert Roscoe Murrow
Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.
Ideas |