This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
All social and political problems are interwoven – that energy, for example, affects economics, which in turn affects health, which in turn, affects education, work, family life, and a thousand other things. The attempt to deal with neatly defined problems in isolation from one another… creates only confusion and disaster.
Economics | Education | Energy | Example | Family | Health | Isolation | Life | Life | Problems | Work |
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precaution for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust... The most effectual one is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.
Good | Men | People | Public | Responsibility | Society | Trust | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom |
Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.
Beyond the logic concerned with things, education must provide the possibility of awakening and cultivating moral aesthetic intuitions. It is the neglect of these higher values that has reduced life to a mere struggle for existence and to the detriment of social and human values in economic and political life.
Aesthetic | Awakening | Education | Existence | Life | Life | Logic | Neglect | Struggle |
The desperate rush to raise standards in schools was not initiated by educators or for educational reasons. Rather, it was mandated by politicians and corporate executives for political reasons…. The effect is to squeeze the intellectual life out of classrooms. Also, it has a disproportionately destructive effect on poor and minority kids, and it drives out some of our best teachers. Schools begin to look like test preparation factories.
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.
Good | Men | Public | Society | Trust | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
The amelioration of the condition of mankind, and the increase of human happiness ought to be the leading objects of every political institution, and the aim of every individual, according to the measure of his power, in the situation he occupies.
Individual | Mankind | Power | Happiness |
Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.
Man is a political creature and one whose nature is to live with others.
A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit.
Action | Character | Desire | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Object | Passion | Science | Study | Time | Will |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
It is said to have been reported to one of the Roman emperors, as a piece of good news, that one of his subjects had invented a process for manufacturing unbreakable glass. The emperor gave orders that the inventor should be put to death and the records of his invention should be destroyed. If the invention had been put on the market, the manufacturers of regular glass would have been put out of business; there would have been unemployment that would have caused political unrest, and perhaps revolution.
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
If one wishes to advocate a free society - that is, capitalism - one must realize that its indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights.
Capitalism | Indispensable | Individual | Rights | Society | Wishes | Society |