This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
B. F. Skinner, fully Burrhus Frederic "B.F." Skinner
If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of behavior.
Behavior | Consequences | Control | Culture | Evolution | People | Purpose | Purpose |
Josiah Stamp, Josiah Charles Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, Lord Stamp
It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
A religious man is guided in his activity not by the consequences of his action, but by the consciousness of the destination of his life.
Action | Consciousness | Consequences | Life | Life | Man |
Hard as it is for us to escape the effects of our own feelings, nobody seems to have difficulty in rejecting the feelings of others as merely subjective and vulnerable to interference from the demons of self-deception and self-delusion.
Delusion | Difficulty | Feelings | Self | Self-deception |
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
Acceptance | Consequences | Misfortune |
Thou wilt never escape from thy self until thou slay it. Thy self, which is keeping thee far from God, and saying “So-and-so has treated me ill… such a one has done well by me” - all this is polytheism; nothing depends upon the creatures, all upon the Creator.
Human beings seek a prior meaning in everything as a defense against doubts about the importance of anything, including man's existence ... To affirm that there is a supreme meaning of life is to give the intellect an opportunity to escape the disquieting conclusion that nothing people do can possibly have more than slight importance.
Defense | Existence | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Nothing | Opportunity | People | Intellect |
We are by nature thinking beings, and if we cannot escape anxiety about the inherent structure of our thought processes, how can we hope to creative purposive ideals that are congruent with reality instead of deflecting us from it?
Anxiety | Anxiety | Hope | Ideals | Nature | Reality | Thinking | Thought | Thought |
It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application
Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but along, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man - war, poverty and tyranny - and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.
Consequences | Dignity | Man | People | Poverty | Sense | Struggle | Truth | Tyranny | War |