This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We have educated ourselves into a world from which wonder, and he fear and dread and splendor and freedom of wonder have been banished. Of course wonder is costly. You couldn't incorporate it into a modern state, because it is the antithesis of the anxiously worshiped security which is what a modern state is asked to give. Wonder is marvelous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. It is undemocratic, discriminatory and pitiless.
Antithesis | Dread | Fear | Freedom | Security | Wonder | World |
The truth is that art does not teach; it makes you feel, and any teaching that may arise from the feeling is an extra, and must not be stressed too much. In the modern world, and in Canada as much as anywhere, we are obsessed with the notion that to think is the highest achievement of mankind, but we neglect the fact that thought untouched by feeling is thin, delusive, treacherous stuff.
Achievement | Art | Neglect | Thought | Truth | Art | Think | Thought |
Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd
Congress should be approving a more robust homeland security bill.
Security |
Yitzhak Shamir, born Icchak Jaziernicki
I considered the prevention of war as the test of our security policy; in addition to being able to rapidly and forcefully end any war forced upon us.
Robert W. Fuller, fully Robert Works Fuller
When the power inherent in a position of authority is used to fortify that position, the institution's purpose is subverted. Behaviors are not aligned with the institution';s professed goals; rather they are skewed to preserve the rank, power, salaries, and security of rank-holders.
Authority | Position | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Security |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who shall reason of Thy greatness? For Thou hast encompassed the sphere of Jupiter with a seventh sphere, And therein revolveth Saturn. And his body is greater than that of the earth ninety-one times by the measure of him, And he completeth his revolution in thirty years of his course, And stirreth up wars, And spoliation and captivity and famine, For such is his appointed task; And devastateth the lands, And rooteth up kingdoms According to the will of Him "Who hath appointed him to His service, Even such strange service."
Body | Earth | Fear | Good | Repentance | Revolution | Righteousness | Words | World |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Who shall attain to Thy exaltation? For Thou hast encompassed the sphere of Saturn with an eighth sphere of encompassment, And it is laden with the twelve constellations On the line of the belt of its ephod, And all the higher stars of cloudland Fixed in its rigidity. And every star of them compasseth its circuit in six and thirty thousand years, From the greatness of its altitude; And the body of each is a hundred and seven times that of the earth, And this is the limit of its greatness. And from the might of these stars Is drawn the strength of all creatures below, Each after its kind, According to the will of the Creator who hath appointed them, And set every one of them in its fit station, And given it its name, "Each man to his service and his station."
Body | Reason | Revolution | Will |
Samora Machel, fully Samora Moisés Machel
The rich man's dog gets more in the way of vaccination, medicine and medical care than do the workers upon whom the rich man's wealth is built.
Fame | Revolution |
Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
Is there a sea between me and you, that I should not turn aside to be with you, that I should not run with a troubled heart to sit at your grave-side? Truly, if I did not do so, I would be a traitor to our brotherly love. O my brother, here I am, facing you, sitting by your grave, and the grief in my heart is as great as on the day you died. If I greeted you, I would hear no reply. You do not come out to meet me when I visit your grounds. You will not laugh in my company, nor I in yours. You cannot see my face, nor I yours, for the pit is your home, the grave your dwelling-place! First-born of my father, son of my mother, may you have peace in your final rest, and may the spirit of God rest upon your spirit and your soul! I am returning to my own soil, for you have been locked under the soil. Sometimes I shall sleep, sometimes wake—while you lie in your sleep forever. But until my last day, the fire of your loss will remain in my heart!
Samuel Niger, aka Shmuel Niger, pseudonymn of Samuel Charney
A man of learning is never bored.
Education | Government | Neglect | Government |
Jonah Barrington, Sir Jonah Barrington
It's not how old you are, it's how hard you work at it.
Better | Business | Doubt | Focus | Good | Industry | Maxims | Method | Optimism | People | Pessimism | Popularity | Search | Security | Skill | Study | Thought | Time | Will | Business | Think | Thought | Value |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
It's time we reduced the federal budget and left the family budget alone.
Better | Capacity | Government | History | Little | Mankind | Plan | Revolution | Time | Unique | Government |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
Challenge | Day | Defense | Mankind | Prison | Security | Technology | Weapons |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much
Security |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The history of our civilization, the great advances that made it possible, is not a story of cynics or doom criers. It is a gallant chronicle of the optimists, the determined people, men and women, who dreamed great dreams and dared to try whatever it took to make them come true.
Security |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
Freedom | Individual | Law | Order | Security |