This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Peter Medawar, fully Sir Peter Brian Medawar
Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poets–scientists and philosopher–scientists and even a few mystics. ... and most people who are in fact scientists could easily have been something else instead.
People |
Is it my fault if belief in Divinity has become a suspected opinion; if the bare suspicion of a Supreme Being is already noted as evidence of a weak mind; and if, of all philosophical Utopias, this is the only one which the world no longer tolerates? Is it my fault if hypocrisy and imbecility everywhere hide behind this holy formula?
Belief | Divinity | Evidence | Fault | Hypocrisy | Suspicion | World | Fault |
Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In property, inequality of conditions is the result of force, under whatever name it be disguised: physical and mental force; force of events, chance, fortune; force of accumulated property… In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. This damaging equation is repellent to the conscience, and causes merit to complain; for, although it may be the duty of the strong to aid the weak, they prefer to do it out of generosity, — they never will endure a comparison. Give them equal opportunities of labor, and equal wages, but never allow their jealousy to be awakened by mutual suspicion of unfaithfulness in the performance of the common task.
Aid | Duty | Force | Inequality | Jealousy | Mediocrity | Merit | Suspicion | Unfaithfulness | Will |
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Thus our judgments, if they do not borrow from reason and philosophy a fixity and steadiness of purpose in their acts, are easily swayed and influenced by the praise or blame of others, which make us distrust our own opinions.
Blame | Distrust | Philosophy | Praise | Purpose | Purpose | Reason |
Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander
In matters of the heart as well, a certain level of negativity and suspicion is universally recommended. You may try to project a thoroughly positive outlook in order to attract a potential boyfriend, but you are also advised to Google him.
Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander
There seems to be a vicious cycle at work here, making ours not just an economy but a culture of extreme inequality. Corporate decision makers, and even some two-bit entrepreneurs like my boss at The Maids, occupy an economic position miles above that of the underpaid people whose labor they depend on. For reasons that have more to do with class — and often racial — prejudice than with actual experience, they tend to fear and distrust the category of people from which they recruit their workers. Hence the perceived need for repressive management and intrusive measures like drug and personality testing. But these things cost money — $20,000 or more a year for a manager, $100 a pop for a drug test, and so on — and the high cost of repression results in ever more pressure to hold wages down. The larger society seems to be caught up in a similar cycle: cutting public services for the poor, which are sometimes referred to collectively as the 'social wage,' while investing ever more heavily in prisons and cops. And in the larger society, too, the cost of repression becomes another factor weighing against the expansion or restoration of needed services. It is a tragic cycle, condemning us to ever deeper inequality, and in the long run, almost no one benefits but the agents of repression themselves.
Cost | Culture | Decision | Distrust | Extreme | Fear | Labor | Money | Need | People | Personality | Position | Prejudice | Public | Society | Work | Society |
R. W. Sellars, fully Roy Wood Sellars
Is Humanism a religion, perhaps, the next great religion? Yes, it must be so characterized, for the word, religion, has become a symbol for answers to that basic interrogation of human life, the human situation, and the nature of things---which every human being, in some degree and in some fashion, makes. What can I expect from life? What kind of universe is it? Is there, as some say, a friendly Providence in control of it? And, if not, what then? The universe of discourse of religion consists of such questions, and the answers relevant to them. Christian theism and Vedantic mysticism are but historic frameworks in relation to which answers have in the past been given to these poignant and persistent queries. But there is nothing sacrosanct and self-certifying about these frameworks. What Humanism represents is the awareness of another framework, more consonant with wider and deeper knowledge about man and his world. The Humanist movement is engaged in formulating answers, with what wisdom it can achieve, to these basic questions. It would be absurd to expect complete novelty in either framework or answers. Many people throughout the ages have had a shrewd suspicion that established beliefs were insecurely based. Humanism at its best represents a growth and a maturing of its perspective...I fear that the orthodox idea of religion is something static and given---once for all. The Humanist thinks of his answers as responsible ones, that is, responsible to the best thought and knowledge on the subjects involved. He [they are] is always ready for honest debate... I want to contrast the perspective of Humanism with that of traditional rationalism...There is no Humanist who does not appreciate with respect and admiration the moving story of the Gospels. Seen as one of the culminations of Judaism in the setting of the Roman Empire, it speaks to us of nobility of soul, human love, pity, and comradeship; and this among everyday people fired by moral and religious leadership of high quality. The heroic and the earthly touch meet, and mingle; and so it has been ever since... What have the intervening centuries made possible? The gradual disentangling of ethical principle and example from both the early framework of belief and the later ecclesiastical development of power and dogma which supervened. But the notes of love and self-sacrifice remain as perennial chords. This also, is greatly human. The older rationalism was on the defensive. And so it expressed itself too often in negative terms: not this; not that; not God; not revelation; not personal immortality. What Humanism signified was a shift from negation to construction. There came a time when naturalism no longer felt on the defensive. Rather, supernaturalism began, it its eyes, to grow dim and fade out despite all the blustering and rationalizations of its advocates.
Absurd | Admiration | Awareness | Belief | Contrast | Control | Dogma | Example | Fear | Growth | Knowledge | Love | Man | Mysticism | Nature | Nobility | Nothing | Novelty | Past | People | Power | Providence | Religion | Respect | Self-sacrifice | Story | Suspicion | Thought | Time | Universe | Wisdom | Respect | Novelty | Awareness | Leadership | Thought |
Ronald Knox, fully Ronald Arbuthnott Knox
Hope is something that is demanded of us; it is not, then, a mere reasoned calculation of our chances. Nor is it merely the bubbling up of a sanguine temperament; if it is demanded of us, it lies not in the temperament but in the will... Hoping for what? For delivereance from persecution, for immunity from plague, pestilence, and famine...? No, for the grace of persevering in his Christian profession, and for the consequent achievement of a happy immortality. Strictly speaking, then, the highest exercise of hope, supernaturally speaking, is to hope for perseverance and for Heaven when it looks, when it feels, as if you were going to lose both one and the other.
Achievement | Grace | Happy | Heaven | Hope | Perseverance |
Puritanism prolonged in America the medieval Christian view of the world and of human destiny. It taught men to distrust their natural inclinations as well as their natural faculties, and to find their origin and their salvation in a supernatural order.... The Enlightenment, on the other hand, was humane, optimistic, and eudaemonistic. The fact that Benjamin Franklin formulated maxims for conduct only served to accentuate the difference in the ultimate ground of moral appeal. The puritan maxims consisted largely in prohibitions, and were imposed by the will of God; the maxims of the new philosophy were recipes for success, discovered by common sense, and motivated by the end of happiness.
Conduct | Distrust | Maxims | Men | Philosophy | Salvation | Will | World |
Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West
If there is a God, I don't think He would demand that anyone bow down or stand up to Him. I often have a suspicion that God is still trying to work things out and hasn't finished.
Yet scientists are required to back up their claims not with private feelings but with publicly checkable evidence. Their experiments must have rigorous controls to eliminate spurious effects. And statistical analysis eliminates the suspicion (or at least measures the likelihood) that the apparent effect might have happened by chance alone.
Margaret Fuller, fully Sara Margaret Fuller, Marchese Ossoli
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone — A higher charm than modern culture won, With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, Gifted to analyze, dissect explore. A many-colored light flows from our sun; Art, 'neath its beams a motley thread has spun; The prison modifies the perfect day; But thou hast known such mediums to shun, And cast once more on life a pure white ray. Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, Forgetting daily self, my truest friend I find.
Angels | Dawn | Distrust | Gall | Hope | Means | Men | Will | World | Worship |
Steering an organization through times of change can be hazardous, and it has been the ruin of many a leader.
Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker
The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.
Saki, pen name for Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro NULL
Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.
Better |
It seems to me that the best way will be the one that is most gentle and forbearing, which is more in conformity with the Spirit of Our Lord and more apt to win hearts.
Day | Distrust | Good | Grace | Heart | Hope | Joy | Munificence | Peace | Prayer | Reason | Receive | Regard | Soul | Strength | Time | Trust | Will | Work |