Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Frank Popoff or Popov

Success breeds conservatism, and that means a love affair with the status quo and an aversion to change.

Change | Character | Conservatism | Love | Means | Success |

Edward A. Strecker

Maturity is a quality of personality made up of a number of elements. It is stick-to-itiveness, the ability to stick to a job, to work on it and to struggle through it until it is finished, or until one has given all one has in the endeavor. It is the quality or capacity of giving more than is asked or required in a given situation. It is this characteristic that enables others to count on one; thus it is reliability. Persistence is an aspect of maturity; persistence to carry out a a goal in the face of difficulties. Endurance enters into the concept of maturity; the endurance of difficulties, unpleasantness, discomfort, frustration, hardship. The ability to size things up, make one's own decisions, is a characteristic of maturity. This implies a considerable amount of independence. A mature person is not dependent unless ill. Maturity includes a determination, a will to succeed and achieve, a will to live. Of course, maturity represents the capacity to cooperate; to work with others; to work in an organization and under authority. The mature person is flexible, can defer to time, persons, circumstances. He can show tolerance. He can be patient, and, above all, he has qualities of adaptability and compromise. Basically, maturity represents a wholesome amalgamation of two things: 1) Dissatisfaction with the status quo, which calls forth aggressive, constructive effort, and 2) Social concern and devotion. Emotional maturity is the morale of the individual.

Ability | Adaptability | Authority | Capacity | Character | Circumstances | Determination | Devotion | Effort | Endurance | Giving | Individual | Organization | Persistence | Personality | Qualities | Reliability | Size | Struggle | Time | Will | Work |

Michel Foucault

Truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power: contrary to a myth whose history and functions would repay further study, truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctions; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

Constraint | Distinguish | History | Means | Myth | Politics | Power | Reward | Society | Solitude | Study | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | World | Society | Child | Privilege | Value |

Alvin Ira Goldman

A current time-slice theory makes the justificational status of a belief wholly a function of what is true of the cognizer at the time of belief. An historical theory makes the justificational status of a belief depend on its prior history. Since my historical theory emphasizes the reliability of the belief-generating processes, it may be called ‘historical reliabilism.’

Belief | History | Reliability | Time | Wisdom |

Center of Concern NULL

Idolatry is the denial of all hope for the future. The idols of the past were worshipped by people who were afraid of change, who wanted things to remain the same, who did not want a future that was different, who found their security in the status quo. The same is true today.

Change | Future | Hope | Past | People | Security | Afraid |

Leon Eisenberg

Pessimism about man serves to maintain the status quo. It is a luxury for the affluent, a sop to the guilt of the politically inactive, a comfort to those who continue to enjoy the amenities of privilege.

Comfort | Guilt | Luxury | Man | Pessimism |

William G. Cole

What makes a marriage is the consent of the partners, their serious intention to live together in some sense, however dimly perceived, as “one flesh,” a union of their two separate existences into still a third existence, the marriage itself… The question of external status is entirely and altogether unnecessary.

Existence | Intention | Marriage | Question | Sense |

Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell

There’s no risk in preserving the status quo, but there’s no profit, either.

Risk |

Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.

All species, all forms of life, have equal status before the presence of the universal power to which we are all subject. The religious requirement for all life-forms is thus harmony, and this requirement holds for every species, ours included… As long as the bond of life is respected, all species have value and meaning.

Harmony | Life | Life | Meaning | Power | Value |

Max Otto, fully Max Carl Otto

The standard device for getting around a logical contradiction by elevating it to the status of a truth beyond logic.

Contradiction | Logic | Truth |

Maureen O’Hara

It turns out that our notions of what a “self” is and how it might feel fulfilled have no more objective status than most of the rest of reality. It seems we make ourselves up as we go alone.

Reality | Rest | Self |

Michael Dorris, fully Michael Anthony Dorris

Protecting children from racism is every bit as important as insuring that they avoid playing with electrical sockets. Poison is poison, and ingrained oppressive cultural attitudes are at least as hard to antidote, once implanted, as are imbibed cleaning fluids. No one gains by allowing an inequitable and discriminatory status quo to persist.

Children | Important |

Henry M. Levin

The educational system will always be applied toward serving the role of cultural transmission and preserving the status quo.

System | Will |

Anita Roddick

Let's stop teaching our children to fear change and to protect the status quo. Let's teach them to inquire and to debate, to ask questions until they hear answers. The best way to do that is to change traditional schooling.

Change | Children | Fear | Teach |

Adrienne Rich, fully Adrienne Cecil Rich

Our history is the history of a majority of the species, yet the struggles of women for a “human” status have been relegated to footnotes to the sidelines. Above all, women’s relationships with women have been denied or neglected as a force in history.

Force | History | Majority |

Arthur W Osborn

Our whole society is permeated with the influence of status symbols

Influence | Society | Society |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

The State is a collection of officials… drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and of the power of the bureaucrats.

Desire | Power |

Harry S. Truman

The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred.

Sacred | World |