This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Moral ambiguity creates mental cramps of various sorts, which lead to reflection, discussion, and argument… Morality resists theoretical unification under either a set of special-purpose rules or single general-purpose rule or principle, such as the categorical imperative or the principle of unity. If this is right, and if it is right because the ends of moral life are plural and heterogeneous in kind and because our practices of moral education rightly reflect this, then we have some greater purchase on why the project of finding a single theoretically satisfying moral theory has failed.
Ambiguity | Argument | Discussion | Education | Ends | Life | Life | Morality | Purpose | Purpose | Reflection | Right | Rule | Unity | Theoretical |
This is the difference between religion and philosophy. Religion begins with the sense of the ineffable; philosophy ends with the sense of the ineffable. Religion begins where philosophy ends.
Ends | Philosophy | Religion | Sense |
Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means.
We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
There is no better indication of a man’s character than the company which he keeps.
Evolution begins and ends with the purposes of God.
Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.
Rolling Thunder, born Louis Belmont Newell NULL
The idea is to have contempt for crime, not for people… It’s more useful to think of every other person as another you - to think of every individual as a representative of the universe.
Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Ends | Responsibility |
We hunger for a kind of group association in which, through being ourselves, we may get to something greater than ourselves. We long to touch the transcendent, and, furthermore, to do it in the company of others who, by sharing our experiences, verify and confirm them.
Association | Hunger | Association |
There isn’t one senior manager in this company who hasn’t been associated with a product that flopped. That includes me. It’s like learning to ski. If you’re not falling, your not learning.
Learning |
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.