This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Man, as he is, is not a genuine article. He is an imitation of something, and a very bad imitation.
A principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups.
Conduct | Government | Harmony | Life | Life | Obedience | Society | Submission | Society | Government |
Anarchism, the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and international temporary or more or less permanent — for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defense of the territory, and so on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs. Moreover, such a society would represent nothing immutable. On the contrary — as is seen in organic life at large — harmony would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the state.
Conduct | Defense | Government | Harmony | Life | Life | Nothing | Obedience | Organic | Society | Submission | Society | Government |
If now we view the sociocultural universe from the standpoint of the component of its human creators, agents, users and operators, we observe that the human components of sociocultural phenomena appear also in the forms of: social system (or organized groups), social congeries (unorganized and largely nominal plurals of individuals) and intermediary semi-organized groups of individuals of various de¬grees of organization. If an interacting group of individuals has as its raison d'etre a consistent set of meanings-values-norms which satisfy their need(s) and for whose use, enjoyment, maintenance and growth the individuals are freely or coercively bound together into one collectivity with a definite and consistent set of law-norms prescribing their conduct and interrelationships, such a social group is a social system or organized group. If its central meanings-values are religious or scientific, or political, or artistic, or 'encyclopedic,' the group respectively will be a religious, scientific, political, artistic, or 'encyclopedic' social system. The nature of the meanings-values of the group determines the specific nature of the group itself." "In any real group-be it a social system or a social congeries or an intermediary type-its 'social' form of being is always inseparable from the 'cultural' meanings-values-norms. Besides the dimension of per¬sonality of its members, any real human (super-organic) group is always a two-dimensional sociocultural reality. The categories of: 'the cultural' and 'the social' are thus inseparable in the empirical sociocultural universe of man
Conduct | Growth | Nature | Phenomena | System | Universe | Will |
Religion, in its most general view, is such a Sense of God in the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and of our dependence upon him, as shall engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a manner which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him.
Care | Conduct | Dependence | God | Reason | Sense | Will | God |
All that is said by any of us can only be imitation and representation.
Bad conduct soils the finest ornament more than filth.
Conduct |
Impeachment did not have to be for criminal offenses - but only for a course of conduct' that suggested an abuse of power or a disregard for the office of the President of the United States... that a person's 'course of conduct' while not particularly criminal could be of such a nature that it destroys trust, discourages allegiance, and demands action by the Congress... the office of the President is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States.
[It is necessary to assign]... to economic activity itself its proper place as servant, not a master, of society. The burden of our civilisation is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of industry is sill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by embittered disagreements. It is that industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the provision of the material means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like a hypochondriac who is so absorbed in the processes of his own digestion that he goes to his grave before he has begun to live, industrialised communities neglect the very objects for which it is worth while to acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with the means by which riches can be acquired.
Conduct | Grave | Industry | Means | Neglect | Position | Riches | Worth | Riches |
By the wicked the good conduct of others is always dreaded.
Puritanism prolonged in America the medieval Christian view of the world and of human destiny. It taught men to distrust their natural inclinations as well as their natural faculties, and to find their origin and their salvation in a supernatural order.... The Enlightenment, on the other hand, was humane, optimistic, and eudaemonistic. The fact that Benjamin Franklin formulated maxims for conduct only served to accentuate the difference in the ultimate ground of moral appeal. The puritan maxims consisted largely in prohibitions, and were imposed by the will of God; the maxims of the new philosophy were recipes for success, discovered by common sense, and motivated by the end of happiness.
Conduct | Distrust | Maxims | Men | Philosophy | Salvation | Will | World |
It is true that one's spiritual feelings are awakened by looking at the picture of a sadhu. It is like being reminded of the custard-apple by looking at an imitation one, or like stimulating the desire for enjoyment by looking at a young woman. Therefore I tell you that you should constantly live in the company of holy men.
Moral certainty is certainty which is sufficient to regulate our behaviour, or which measures up to the certainty we have on matters relating to the conduct of life which we never normally doubt, though we know that it is possible, absolutely speaking, that they may be false.
So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.
Conduct | Curiosity | Experiment | Hope | Reason | Risk | Truth |
The value and dignity of the individual is threatened whenever it is assumed that individual desires, hopes and ideals can be fitted with friction harmony into the collective purposes of man. The individual is not discrete. He cannot find his fulfillment outside of the community; but he also cannot find fulfillment completely within society. In so far as he finds fulfillment within society he must abate his individual ambitions. He must 'die to self' if he would truly live. In so far as he finds fulfillment beyond every historical community he lives his life in painful tension with even the best community, sometimes achieving standards of conduct which defy the standards of the community with a resolute we must obey God rather than man.
Conduct | Dignity | Fulfillment | God | Harmony | Ideals | Individual | Life | Life | Society | Society | God | Value |
The government of the United States is not entitled to affirm as a universal proposition, with reference to a number of independent States for whose conduct it assumes no responsibility, that its interests are necessarily concerned in whatever may be
Conduct | Government | Government |
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
What's the point of being a lesbian if a woman is going to look and act like an imitation man?
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.