This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Karl Deutsch, fully Karl Wolfgang Deutsch
The single greatest power in the world today is the power to change... The most recklessly irresponsible thing we could do in the future would be to go on exactly as we have in the past ten or twenty years. I can imagine no more dangerous policy than the conservatism that exists today.
Change | Conservatism | Future | Past | Policy | Power | Wisdom | World |
True conservatism is substantial progress; it holds fast what is true and good in order to advance in both. To cast away the old is not of necessity to attain the new. To reject anything that is valuable, lessens the power of gaining more. That a thing is new does not of course commend; that it is old does not discredit. The test question is, "Is it true or good?"
Conservatism | Good | Necessity | Order | Power | Progress | Question | Wisdom | Old |
One thing scientists have discovered is that often-appreciated children become more intelligent than often-blamed ones. If some of your employees are a bit dumb, perhaps your treatment of them is to blame. There is a creative element in appreciation.
Appreciation | Blame | Children | Wisdom |
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder, and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed... To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men.
Art | Awe | Beauty | Experience | Good | Knowledge | Men | Science | Sense | Wisdom | Wonder | Art | Beauty |
Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated
Faith | Science | Uniformity | Wisdom |
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.
Human nature | Nature | Wisdom |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting.
A man knoweth not the worth of a thing before that he wanteth it.
Never one thing and seldom one person can make for a success. It takes a number of them merging into one perfect whole.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Awe | Curiosity | Day | Enough | Eternity | Important | Life | Life | Little | Mystery | Reality | Reason | Wisdom |
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
The act of contemplation then creates the thing contemplated.
Contemplation | Wisdom | Contemplation |
M. Stanton Evans, fully Medford Stanton Evans
Great discoveries or ideas have one thing in common. Before they are achieved they are considered incredible and not worth the effort deemed necessary to make them real. After they are achieved, it is incredible that we should be without them.
Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.
Achievement | Mistake | Wisdom |
All Fords are exactly alike, but no two men are just alike. Every new life is a new thing under the sun; there has never been anything just like it before, never will be again. A young man ought to get that idea about himself; he should look for the single spark of individuality that makes him different from other folks, and develop that for all he is worth. Society and schools may try to iron it out of him; their tendency is to put it all in the same mold, but I say don't let that spark be lost; it is your only real claim to importance.
Individuality | Life | Life | Man | Men | Society | Will | Wisdom | Worth | Society |