This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Riane Eisler, fully Riane Tennenhaus Eisler
For what we are beginning to wake up to today ...is that we have for millennia structured our social institutions and our systems of values precisely in ways that serve to block, distort, and pervert our enormous human yearning for loving connections.
Richard Barnet, fully Richard Jackson Barnet
Revolution is a wasteful, destructive, and inhuman engine of political change. It must be allowed to happen if there is nothing better, but the great challenge to human ingenuity is to find alternative paths to economic and political reconstruction, which can bring basic changes without the massive use of violence. The societies of the- Third World can ill afford the economic and human costs of prolonged civil war. But virtually all of the thinking to date about revolutionizing underdeveloped societies through technology rather than through violence has been designed to serve the political interests of the donor country. The avoidance of revolution has been an end in itself, and very little commitment has been made to the achievement of radical political change through nonviolent means in societies needing revolution. A great nation has an inherent problem, and possibly an insoluble one, in devising a strategy for helping another society to remake its political life without injecting its own interests and values and without coming to dominate the weak.
Achievement | Challenge | Change | Commitment | Ingenuity | Life | Life | Little | Means | Nothing | Revolution | Society | Technology | Thinking | World | Society | Ingenuity |
I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content.
Loss |
It would be deeply depressing if the only way children could get moral values was from religion. Either from scripture, and God knows we don't want them to get it from scripture, I mean, just look at scripture. Or, from being afraid of God, being intimidated by God. Anybody who is good for only those two reasons is not really being good at all. Why not teach children things like the Golden Rule, do as you would be done by, how would you like it if other children did that to you, so why do you do it to them... I think it's depressing that anybody should suggest that you actually need God in order to be moral. I would hope that our morals come from a better source than that, and therefore they are genuinely moral rather than based on outmoded scripture, or based on fear.
Better | Children | God | Good | Hope | Need | Order | Teach | God | Afraid | Think |
R. H. Tawney, fully Richard Henry Tawney
A society which values equality will attach a high degree of significance to differences of character and intelligence between different individuals, and a low degree of significance to economic and social differences between different groups. It will endeavor, in shaping its policy and organization, to encourage the former and to neutralize and suppress the latter, and will regard it as vulgar and childish to emphasize them when, unfortunately, they still exist.
Character | Equality | Intelligence | Policy | Regard | Society | Will | Society |
This is an age of groups, clubs, associations, and whatnot; most members of the clerisy belong to enough of these already. It is within the groups to which they already belong that they can best assert the values of the humanist
Our fate lies in your hands, to you we pray For an indulgent hearing of our play; Laugh if you can, or failing that, give vent In hissing fury to your discontent; Applause we crave, from scorn we take defense But have no armor 'gainst indifference.
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, aka Vatican II
There was no need to call a council merely to hold discussions of that nature. What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men's moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else. This, then, is what will require our careful, and perhaps too our patient, consideration. We must work out ways and means of expounding these truths in a manner more consistent with a predominantly pastoral view of the Church's teaching office.
Conduct | Eternal | Life | Life | Men | Mortal | Obligation | Purpose | Purpose | Regard | Right |
Dear God, Open the blocked passageways to you, The congealed places. Roll away the heavy stone from the well as your servant Jacob did when he beheld his beloved Rachel Help us open the doors of trust that have been jammed with hurt and rejection. As you open the blossoms in spring, Even as you open the heavens in storm. open us – to feel your great, awesome, wonderful presence.
Ability | Commitment | God | Ideals | Important | Practice | Wisdom | Words | God |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.
Family |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
Challenge | Day | Defense | Mankind | Prison | Security | Technology | Weapons |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The vote on the Peacekeeper is also a vote on Geneva. Rejecting the Peacekeeper will knock the legs out from under the negotiating table. (On importance of the MX missile)
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
Middle age is when you're faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o'clock.
Age | Era | Government | People | Reform | Relationship | Will | Government |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
Remember that every government service, every offer of government - financed security, is paid for in the loss of personal freedom... In the days to come, whenever a voice is raised telling you to let the government do it, analyze very carefully to see whether the suggested service is worth the personal freedom which you must forgo in return for such service.
Hope | Ideals | Strength | Struggle | Will | Wills | World | Trial |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
Dreams became issues of East versus West. Hopes became political rhetoric. Progress became a search for power and domination. Somewhere the truth was lost that people don't make war, governments do.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
I know you receive many letters like this, and I recognize that over time they must come to seem fairly routine... Please understand, however, that my years in your service will always be very special to me. The inspiration you have given me will burn brightly in my heart long after I have left the lights of the White House behind.
Civilization | Past |
As we shall see, a strategy of leadership to accomplish adaptive work accounts for several conditions and values that are consonant with the demands of a democratic society. In addition to reality testing, these include respecting conflict, negotiation, and a diversity of views within a community; increasing community cohesion; developing norms of responsibility-taking, learning, and innovation; and keeping social distress within a bearable range.
Challenge | Distress | Organization | People | Reality |