This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for your - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what American will do for your, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Chain reaction is popularly associated with the atomic bomb, but it is no less gigantic a force in your daily life. Every word you speak, every action you perform sets up a chain of reaction that can end in a damaging explosion or a shower of blessings.
Action | Atomic bomb | Blessings | Force | Life | Life | Wisdom |
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad... freedom of religion, freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus; and trials by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
Age | Commerce | Freedom of religion | Freedom | Government | Justice | Men | Nations | Peace | Persuasion | Principles | Religion | Revolution | Rights | Trials | Wisdom | Friendship | Government |
W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
Let life teach you what spirit it... By conforming to spiritual ideals imposed from the outside through the force of tradition, people often channel themselves into models of behavior that violate their inner essence. We are all guaranteed realization when we strip away our pre-conceived notions about spiritual perfection, give up striving form some idealized end-point called 'enlightenment,' and discover the magnificence of what we already are and live that fully.
Behavior | Enlightenment | Force | Ideals | Life | Life | People | Perfection | Spirit | Teach | Tradition | Wisdom |
Karl Jaspers, fully Karl Theodor Jaspers
The will does not choose between good and evil; it is its choice, rather, that makes it good or evil. The act of choosing either liberates it, as good will, or enchains it as ill will. In neither case is there a choice between two possibilities; my will is its own original freedom or anti-freedom.
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.
Freedom | Opinion | Uniformity | Unity | Wisdom |
John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
We live in a hemisphere whose own revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of the modern age - the search for the freedom and self-fulfillment of man.
Age | Birth | Force | Freedom | Fulfillment | Man | Revolution | Search | Self | Wisdom |
The reason for the sublime simplicity in the works of nature lies all too often in the sublime shortsightedness in the observer.
Nature | Reason | Simplicity | Wisdom |
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
Compensation | Example | Freedom of speech | Freedom of thought | Freedom | People | Speech | Thought | Wisdom |
Birth and death are like two ships in a harbor. There is no reason to rejoice at the ship setting out on a journey [birth], not knowing what she may encounter on the high seas, but we should rejoice at the ship returning to port [death] safely.
I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.
Commerce | Freedom | Men | Mind | Toleration | Tyranny | Wisdom | Commerce |
Religion is really experiencing a state in which there is creation. This is not an idea, a process. It can be realized when there is freedom from self. There can be freedom from self only through understanding the self in relationship; but there can be no understanding in isolation.
Freedom | Isolation | Relationship | Religion | Self | Understanding | Wisdom |