This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Jean Monnet, fully Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet
Everybody is ambitious. The question is whether he is ambitious to be or ambitious to do.
Question |
Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
Administration | Knowing | Power |
Man cannot… make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur.
Circumstances | Man | Power | Purpose | Purpose |
To approach the living question with the mind alone is impossible. The intellect must be coupled with feeling in order to stir a person to authentic inquiry. Real philosophy recognizes that ideas have sensations and emotions connected with them, and that one responds to them with the whole of oneself.
Emotions | Ideas | Inquiry | Mind | Order | Philosophy | Question | Intellect |
Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.
I question whether God himself would wish me to hide behind the principles of non-violence while innocent people were being slaughtered.
God | People | Principles | Question | God |
Eventually all successful storytelling technologies become “transparent”: we lose consciousness of the medium and see neither print nor film but only the power of the story itself. If digital art reaches the same level of expressiveness as these older media, we will no longer concern ourselves with how we are receiving information. We will only think about what truth it has told us about our lives.
Art | Consciousness | Power | Story | Truth | Will | Art | Think |
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Paula Ripple, fully Paula Ripple Comin
Neither power nor wealth, neither education nor ability, neither gifts of creativity nor stores of human energy can insure against the reality that suffering will be our companion at some time during our journey. It is a presence as inseparable from the human condition as food and oxygen are from human life. It is part of our legacy.
Ability | Creativity | Education | Energy | Journey | Life | Life | Power | Reality | Suffering | Time | Wealth | Will |
The oppressor must have the cooperation of the oppressed, of those he must feel better than. The oppressed and the damned are placed in an inferior position by force of arms, physical strength, and later, by threats of such force. But the long-time maintenance of power over others is secured by psychological manipulation and seduction.
Better | Cooperation | Force | Position | Power | Strength | Time |