This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The relationship to the world that the modern science fostered and shaped now appears to have exhausted its potential. It is increasingly clear that, strangely, the relationship is missing something. It fails to connect with the most intrinsic nature of reality and with natural human experience. It is now more of a source of disintegration and doubt than a source of integration and meaning. It produces what amounts to a state of schizophrenia: Man as an observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as a being.
Culture | Happy | People | Revolution | Society | Strength | Trust | Wonder | World | Society |
Full freedom of speech and expression prevails in our country, and freedom of assembly and association is guaranteed.
Government | Security | Government |
Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Freedom of inquiry must be preserved under any plan for Government support of science.
Achievement | Peace | Progress | Security |
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.
Absurd | Better | Change | Danger | Global | Nothing | Revolution | War | Weapons | Will | World | Danger |
Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate boundaries.
Achievement | Peace | Progress | Security |
The publicly and privately supported colleges, universities, and research institutes are the centers of basic research. They are the wellsprings of knowledge and understanding. As long as they are vigorous and healthy and their scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems in Government, in industry, or elsewhere.
Better | Individual | Progress | Science | Security | Spirit |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.
Errors of theory or doctrine are not so much false statements, as partial statements. - Half a truth received, while the corresponding half is unknown or rejected, is a practical falsehood.
Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun
Patience means: "If people scold me, I can bear it. If they hit me, I can take it. No matter how badly they treat me, I can endure it."
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile.
Energy | Focus | Revolution | Technology |
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.
We should have the courage to take risks when they are thoughtful risks. We must try to make clear, sound, aggressive decisions, not waiting until every possible base has been touched.
Security |
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
Explore the depths of humility, not with your intellects but with your lives, lived in prayer of humble obedience. And there you will find that humility is not merely a human virtue. For there is a humility that is in God Himself. Be ye humble as God is humble. For love and humility walk hand in hand, in God as well as in man. But there is something about deepest humility which makes men bold. For utter obedience is self-forgetful obedience. No longer do we hesitate and shuffle and apologize because, say we, we are weak, lowly creatures and the world is a pack of snarling wolves among whom we are sent as sheep by the Shepherd. I must confess that, on human judgment, the world tasks we face are appalling—well-nigh hopeless. Only the inner vision of God, only the God-blindedness of unreservedly dedicated souls, only the utterly humble ones can bow and break the raging pride of a power-mad world.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization.
Price | Revolution | Value |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.
Beginning | Duty | Revolution |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The Americans who went to Europe to die are a unique breed.... (They) crossed the seas to a foreign land to fight for a cause which they did not pretend was peculiarly their own, which they knew was the cause of humanity and mankind. These Americans gave the greatest of all gifts, the gift of life and the gift of spirit.
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
He possessed the six attributes of the adventurer-- a memory for names and faces, with the aptitude for altering his own; the gift of tongues; inexhaustible invention; secrecy; the talent for falling into conversation with strangers; and that freedom from conscience that springs from a contempt for the dozing rich he preyed upon.
Beginning | Life | Life | Love | Neglect | Pleasure | Loss | Privilege |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests.
Action | Confidence | Fear | Life | Life | Obligation | Security | Sense | Spirit | Time |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The Senate of the United States has been both extravagantly praised and unreasonably disparaged, according to the predisposition and temper of its various critics... The truth is, in this case as in so many others, something quite commonplace and practical. The Senate is just what the mode of its election and the conditions of public life in this country make it.