This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
When we're done with it, we may find—if it's a good novel—that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having meet a new face, crossed a street we've never crossed before.
Of all our losses, those delay doth cause, are most and heaviest. - By it oft we lose the richest treasures, knowledge, wealth, and power, and oft, alas! the never dying soul. - The calls of God and duty we intend to hear, at some convenient season, which to us may never come. - And thus we madly waste probation, forfeit heaven, and heedless sink to endless death.
Power | Providence |
Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella
They use baths, and moreover they have warm ones according to the Roman custom, and they make use also of olive oil. They have found out, too, a great many secret cures for the preservation of cleanliness and health. And in other ways they labor to cure the epilepsy, with which they are often troubled.
Fear | Little | Love | Power | Property | Reason | Riches | Self-love | Wife | Riches |
The religions we count false, may, for a time, have had their use; being, in their origin, faint, though misunderstood echoes of an early divine revelation, and also as Emerson says. "affirmations of the conscience, correcting the evil customs of their times."
We weep over the graves of infants and the little ones taken from us by death; but an early grave may be the shortest way to heaven.
Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun
To obtain genuine wisdom, we must work hard in our practice and be in accord with the rules.
Power |
The word "miser," so often used as expressive of one who is grossly covetous and saving, in its origin signifies one that is miserable, the very etymology of the word thus indicating the necessary unhappiness of the miser spirit.
Discipline | Mathematics | Power | Reason | Study | Training | World |
Hung Tzu-ch'eng, also Hong Zicheng or Hóng Zìchéng, born Hong Yingming
A scholar should gather up spirit and energy in single-mindedness. If your quest for virtue is for reasons of fame and fortune, you will never amount to anything. If in scholarly endeavors you indulge in fashionable verse and stylistic flourishes, you cannot attain depth and stability of mind.
Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.
Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface.
Power |
Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz
The psychiatric profession’s most distinguishing feature… the deliberate, systematic dehumanization of man, in the name of mental health.
Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.
Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise. Then often times we find that it is comparatively simple to double or triple our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results a
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
Some men come into holy obedience through the gateway of profound mystical experience. It is an overwhelming experience to fall into the hands of the living God, to be invaded to the depths of one's being by His presence, to be, without warning, wholly uprooted from all earth-born securities and assurances, and to be blown by a tempest of unbelievable power which leaves one's old proud self utterly, utterly defenseless, until one cries, "All Thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" Then is the soul swept into a Loving Center of ineffable sweetness, where calm and unspeakable peace and ravishing joy steal over one.
Absolute | Children | Enough | Eternal | Father | God | Heaven | Life | Life | Men | Obedience | Power | Watchfulness | Will | God |
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.
The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
My thoughts by night are often filled With visions false as fair: For in the past alone, I build My castles in the air.