This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
One hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of prayer.
Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.
Appreciation | Beginning | Life | Life | Mankind | Understanding | Will | Wonder | Worth | Happiness |
Isn't it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now?
Worth |
Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.
Family | Feelings | Individual | Worth |
To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial.
Character | Temptation | Work | World | Worth |
M. C. Swabey, fully Marie Taylor Collins Swabey
If consciousness means what it claims to mean, not everything of worth in the World is traceable to an origin with Man, reference to Man, or application to Man’s use.
Consciousness | Man | Means | World | Worth |
If a picture is worth a thousand words, one act is worth a thousand pictures.
The greatest and most urgent task of educators today is to instill ineradicably into the young precisely the utility of the useless, the value of the things that produce no cash returns but that make the “soul worth saving.”
A meaningful life is also not one that has merely instrumental value to some goal, even if the goal is divine. This suggests two important conclusions; First, meaningful activities are those that have a certain kind of non-instrumental value, and a meaningful life is one that consists of such activities. Second, derived from this, the meaning of a life must be in the living of it, or rather in the way it is lived. These are important conclusions, because they apply even if God has a purpose in mind for us and even if there is an everlasting afterlife. Even if there is a goal worth struggling for, the meaning is in the struggle.
Afterlife | God | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Struggle | Worth | God | Value |
Bill Bradley, fully William Warren "Bill" Bradley
What is life worth if we don’t strive to build something that is bigger than we are and lasts longer than we do? For too long, we’ve not worried about future generations or met our obligations to each other. Instead, we have lived for ourselves, and for today. Such a world is simply not sustainable.
It is creative perception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living.
Individual | Life | Life | Perception | Worth |
One hundred volumes of international law are not the equal of a few cannons; a handful of treaties are not worth a basket of gunpowder. Cannon and gunpowder are not aids for the enforcement of given moral principles, they are implements for the creation of morality where none exists.
Law | Morality | Principles | Worth |
A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds... An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.
Existence | Force | Obligation | Right | Worth |
Lucie Campbell, fully Lucie Eddie Campbell-Williams
To win, one must be big enough to see the worth in others, big enough to cheer when others score.
A more peaceful way to live is to decide consciously which battles are worth fighting and which are better left alone.