This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The non-spatial nature of consciousness makes it possible for any apparently unconscious entity to be conscious, and vice versa.
Consciousness | Nature | Vice |
John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
People must learn that the accumulation of wealth by the successful conduct of business is the corollary of the improvement of their own standard of living and vice versa. They must realize that bigness in business is not an evil, but both the cause and effect of the fact that they themselves enjoy all those amenities whose enjoyment is called the “American way of life.
Business | Cause | Enjoyment | Improvement | Wealth | Business | Learn | Vice |
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.
Unhappiness | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness | Vice |
Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.
Choice | Individual | Vice |
Joseph Mazzini, aka Giuseppe Mazzini
Every Age has its own peculiar faith. Any attempt to translate into facts the mission of one Age with the machinery of another, can only end in an indefinite series of abortive efforts. Defeated by the utter want of proportion between the means and the end, such attempts might produce martyrs, but never lead to victory.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
I would not be surprised to learn that some branch of our government conspired either actively to promote or passively to allow the attack on 9/11. For those who watched the reactionary political uses made of this tragedy, it’s easy to conjure up a variety of possible conspiratorial motives that would have led the president, the vice president, or some branch of the armed forces or CIA or FBI or other “security” forces to have passively or actively participated in a plot to re-credit militarism and war.
Government | Motives | Government | Learn | Vice |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet; the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. I like the the word however. To me it suggests something altogether different: it evokes "concern"; it evokes the care one takes for what exists and could exist; an acute sense of the real which, however, never becomes fixed; a readiness to find our surroundings strange and singular; a certain relentlessness in ridding ourselves of our familiarities and looking at things otherwise; a passion for seizing what is happening now and what is passing away; a lack of respect for traditional hierarchies of the important and the essential.
Care | Important | Passion | Philosophy | Respect | Sense | Respect | Vice |
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
It is the mission of each true knight... His duty... nay, his privilege! To dream the impossible dream, To fight the unbeatable foe, To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go; To right the unrightable wrong. To love, pure and chaste, from afar, To try, when your arms are too weary, To reach the unreachable star! This is my Quest to follow that star, No matter how hopeless, no matter how far, To fight for the right Without question or pause, To be willing to march into hell For a heavenly cause! And I know, if I'll only be true To this glorious Quest, That my heart will lie peaceful and calm When I'm laid to my rest. And the world will be better for this, That one man, scorned and covered with scars, Still strove, with his last ounce of courage, To reach the unreachable stars!
Better | Heart | Hell | Mission | Question | Right | Sorrow | Will | World |
Mikhail Bakunin, fully Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa.
Individual | Liberty | Vice |