This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.
Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.
This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a true force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, an, as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
Force | Happy | Joy | Life | Life | Little | Nature | Opinion | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World | Privilege |
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
What is the true content of art, and with what aim is this content to be presented? On this subject our consciousness supplies us with the common opinion that it is the task and ima of art to bring in contact with our sense, our feeling, our inspiration, all that finds a place in the mind of man... Its aim is therefore placed in arousing and animating the slumbering emotions, inclinations, and passions; in filling the heart, in forcing the human being, whether cultured or uncultured, to feel the whole range of what man’s soul in its inmost and secret corners has power to experience and to create, and all that is able to move and to stir the human breast in its depths and in its manifold aspects and possibilities; to present as a delight to emotion and to perception all that the mind possesses of real and lofty in its thought and in the Idea - all the splendor of the noble, the eternal, and the true; and no less to make intelligible misfortune and misery, wickedness and crime; to make men realize the inmost nature of all that is shocking and horrible, as also of all pleasure and delight; and, finally, to set imagination roving in idle toyings of fancy, and luxuriating in the seductive spells of sense-stimulating visions.
Art | Consciousness | Crime | Emotions | Eternal | Experience | Heart | Imagination | Inspiration | Man | Men | Mind | Misfortune | Nature | Opinion | Perception | Pleasure | Power | Present | Sense | Soul | Thought | Wickedness | Misfortune | Art | Thought |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their action.
Action | Consequences | Opinion | Public |
Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent.
It is impossible to indulge in habitual severity of opinion upon our fellow-men without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings.
Feelings | Men | Opinion | Tenderness |
A man's character is the reality of himself. His reputation is the opinion others have formed of him. Character is in him; reputation is from other people - that is the substance, this is the shadow.
In the minds of most men, the kingdom of opinion is divided into three territories - the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unexplored middle ground of doubt.
Of all the ingenious mistakes into which erring man has fallen, perhaps none have been so pernicious in their consequences, or have brought so many; evils into the world, as the popular opinion that the way of the transgressor is pleasant and easy.
Consequences | Man | Opinion | World |
Discover the opinion of your enemies, which is commonly the truest; for they will give you no quarter, and allow nothing to complaisance.