This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Tennessee Williams, fully Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams
You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.
To truly serve, purpose must be connected to our unique authenticity. That is why money cannot serve as our purpose. It can be a goal, but not a purpose.
Authenticity | Money | Purpose | Purpose | Unique |
It’s easier to succeed because failure exacts a high price in terms of time when you have to do a job over. It’s easier to succeed because success eliminates the agony and frustration of defeat. It’s easier to succeed because money spent to fail must be spent again to succeed. It’s easier to succeed because a person’s credibility decreases with each failure, making it harder to succeed the second time. And it’s easier to succeed because joy and expressions of affirmation come from succeeding, whereas feelings of discouragement and discontent accompany failure.
Agony | Defeat | Discontent | Failure | Feelings | Joy | Money | Price | Success | Time | Failure |
It was for the sake of security that the people of ancient ties turned to the Baals and other idols. Today, our oppressors turn to money and military power and to the so-called security forces. But their security is insecurity. We experience their security as intimidation and repression, terror, rape and murder. Those who turn to the idols for security demand our insecurity as the price that must be paid.
Experience | Insecurity | Intimidation | Money | Murder | People | Power | Price | Security | Terror |
Jesus talked a great deal about money. Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables were concerned with how to handle money and possessions. In the gospels, an amazing one out of ten verses (288 in all) deal directly with the subject of money. The Bible offers 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but more than 2,000 on money and possessions.
Bible | Faith | Money | Parables | Possessions | Prayer | Bible |
At the bottom, people tend to believe that class is defined by the amount of money you have. In the middle, people grant that money has something to do with it, but think education and the kind of work you do almost equally important. Nearer the top, people perceive that taste, values, ideas, style, and behavior are indispensable criteria of class, regardless of money or occupation or education.
Behavior | Education | Ideas | Important | Indispensable | Money | Occupation | People | Style | Taste | Work | Think |
Sloth (like Rust) consumes faster than Labor wears: the used Key is always bright.
Is not hope of being one day able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labor and industry? May not luxury, therefore, produce more than it consumes, if without such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent?
In their unrestrained eagerness to possess, the oppressors develop the conviction that it is possible for them to transform everything into objects of their purchasing power; hence their strictly materialistic concept of existence. Money is the measure of all things, and profit the primary goal… To the oppressor consciousness, the humanization of the “others,” of the people, appears not as the pursuit of full humanity, but as subversion.
Consciousness | Existence | Humanity | Money | People | Power |
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
Money |
Happiness cannot be overtaken by those who pursue her. Happiness is a by-product of cheerful, honest labor dedicated to a worthwhile task… We cannot have happiness unless we give of ourselves… If it is true that we cannot get happiness unless we give it, it is also true that we cannot give it without getting it. Happiness has correctly been compared to a perfume. You cannot pour it on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
Happiness is a by-product of cheerful, honest labor dedicated to a worthwhile task… We cannot have happiness unless we give of ourselves…