This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.
Democracy | Faith | Intolerance | Spirit |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
If a rich man steals it is a mistake; if a poor man makes a mistake he has stolen.
Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.
Absolute | Intolerance |
The future disappeared, and my selfish motives went with it. I existed only in the present. The one thing keeping me going was being part of a group, knowing each mistake made my comrades a little weaker. Group punishment, shunned in most of American society, was a staple at OCS. Platoons fight as groups. They live or die as groups. So we were disciplined as a group.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact.
Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived and then by some means or other, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'll mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection) but still unique.
Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
Lives are snowflakes - unique in detail, forming patterns we have seen before, but as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection.)
From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement. The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness through all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. The premature death of millions is primarily traceable to this cause. Even among those who exercise care, it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary, and ignore the real dangers. And what is true of an individual also applies, more or less, to a people as a whole.
Attention | Childhood | Consciousness | Contemplation | Death | Disguise | Existence | Individual | Knowledge | Means | Mistake | Occupation | People | Present | World | Contemplation | Value |
The battle is long and arduous. Let there be no mistake as to that. Go not forth to this battle without counting the cost. Ages have gone to the strengthening of the foe. Ages of conflict must be spent, ere the foe, wholly conquered, becomes the servant, the Soul’s minister to mankind.
Everything said to myself that I was about to have a wrong decision, but to suffer from mistakes is just part of life. The world wants something from you? Do not want to risk it again and returned to where they have gone by I do not have the courage to say yes to it? I made a mistake when his first eleven years old, when her son I can ask to see him not borrow a pencil, from then on, I realized that sometimes you do not have a second chance and it is better to accept the gift that this world gift . Of course it's risky, but risk is greater risk that their bus was sitting on the forty-eight hours to get here might have an accident? If I must be honest with someone or something, you have to do, and first, to be honest with yourself already. If you are looking for a true love, then you must first remove the trivial love from people you have. What little experience I have taught her is that no one owns anything at all, that everything is an illusion-and illusion that the physical affects as well as the soul of all things so. Anyone who has lost something that they think it is theirs forever (as it has frequently happened to me last time), finally realizes that nothing really belongs to them all. And if nothing belongs to me at all, then it is useless to waste time to take care of things is not his; best to live as if today is the first (or also may be the last day) of life.
Better | Care | Chance | Courage | Experience | Illusion | Little | Love | Mistake | Nothing | People | Risk | Soul | Time | Wants | Waste | World | Wrong | Think |
him. He now owns a small part of me, which I have freely and voluntarily given. Intelligent people discuss ideas. Fools discuss how people should behave… Intolerance is the only way to put an end to the doubts which disturb the spirit of human beings has always been… Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.
Intolerance | Intuition | People | Soul | Spirit |
No mistake is more to be deplored than the conception that a system of morals and religion should derive any portion of its authority either from the circumstance of its novelty or its antiquity, that it should be judged excellent, not because it is reasonable or true, but because no person has ever thought of it before, or because it has been thought of from the beginning of time.
Authority | Beginning | Mistake | Novelty | Religion | System | Thought | Novelty | Circumstance | Thought |
Pete Seeger, born Peter Seeger
The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be.
Peter Senge, fully Peter Michael Senge
Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.