This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It is the narrowest decisions that are most ardently debated. If the world is lucky enough to enjoy peace, it may even one day make the discovery, to the horror of doctrinaire free-enterprisers and doctrinaire planners alike, that what is called capitalism and what is called socialism are both capable of working quite well.
Capitalism | Choice | Day | Decision | Enough | Good | Public | World |
I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.
Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line...To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes and in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth -- disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world.
Art | Beginning | Choice | Faith | Justification | Life | Life | Light | Mankind | Men | Passion | Regret | Sincerity | Tenderness | Terror | Truth | Vision | Work | Art |
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown. It is not possible that this unity of knowledge,feelings,and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago;rather,this knowledge,feeling, and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all people,nay in all sensitive beings.
Religion is man's way of accepting life as an inevitable defeat. That it is not an inevitable defeat is a claim that cannot be defended in good faith. One can, of course, disperse one's life over the contingencies of every day, but even then it is only a ceaseless and desperate desire to live, and finally a regret that one has not lived. One can accept life, and accept it, at the same time, as a defeat only if one accepts that there is a sense beyond that which is inherent in human history -- if, in other words, one accepts the order of the sacred. A hypothetical world from which the sacred had been swept away would admit of only two possibilities: vain fantasy that recognizes itself as such, or immediate satisfaction which exhausts itself. It would leave only the choice proposed by Baudelaire, between lovers of prostitutes and lovers of clouds: those who know only the satisfactions of the moment and are therefore contemptible, and those who lose themselves in otiose imaginings , and are therefore contemptible. Everything is contemptible, and there is no more to be said. The conscience liberated from the sacred knows this, even if it conceals it from itself.
Choice | Conscience | Defeat | Desire | Good | History | Inevitable | Life | Life | Order | Regret | Sacred | Sense | World |
Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
He who reads with discernment and choice will acquire less learning, but more knowledge; and as this knowledge is collected with design, and cultivated with art and method, it will be at all times of immediate and ready use to himself and others
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley
In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
Economics is not about goods and services; it is about human choice and action.
Choice |
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at, and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends.
Attainment | Choice | Ends | History | Mankind | Means | Men |
Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.
Choice | Individual | Vice |
Whether we love, or close our hearts to love, is a mental choice we make, every moment of every day.
Choice |
What are the proper grounds for joy? Is it circumstance which will determine the stature of my spirit? Ah, no. It is choice. It is always a choice – in the face of any event – for joy.
Choice | Will | Circumstance |
The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.
Choice |
In all things and in all ways, choice impacts virtually every element of our life. It bears repeating that even those things which seem out of reach of our choice are governed by how we choose to perceive them.
Choice |
AN INSPIRED LIFE: I HAVE A CHOICE. My key to living an inspired life involves Embracing my history, Understanding the function of expectations and gently learning to have none; Recognizing the power of attentive and conscious choices. In all circumstances I acknowledge this, IN ALL THINGS AND ALL WAYS, I HAVE CHOICE. My choice resides in my perspective. While I certainly do not control climate and markets and roadways and others, I do control myself and my response to all those circumstances. I do indeed.
Choice | Circumstances | Control | Learning | Life | Life | Power |
Although most people never overcome the habit of berating the world for their difficulties, those who are too weak to make a stand against reality have no choice but to obliterate themselves by identifying with it. They are never rationally reconciled to civilization. Instead, they bow to it, secretly accepting the identity of reason and domination, of civilization and the ideal, however much they may shrug their shoulders. Well-informed cynicism is only another mode of conformity. These people willingly embrace or force themselves to accept the rule of the stronger as the eternal norm. Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, all these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed. However, their own natural impulses, those antagonistic to the various demands of civilization, lead a devious undercover life within them.
Choice | Civilization | Cynicism | Effort | Eternal | Force | Habit | Life | Life | People | Reality | Reason | Rule | Words | World |
The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.