This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
The teacher is like the farmer or the physician. The farmer doesn’t produce the grains of the field; he merely helps them grow. The physician does not produce the health of the body; he merely helps the body maintain its health or regain its health. And the teacher does not produce knowledge in the mind; he merely helps the mind discover it for itself.
The best teacher is not necessarily the one who possesses the most knowledge but the one who most effectively enables his students to believe in their ability to learn.
Experience is a good teacher but she runs up big bills.
Experience | Good | Teacher |
Time is the teacher most sublime.
A book is the most delightful companion.. An inanimate thing, yet it talks... It stimulates your latent talents. There is in the world no friend more faithful and attentive, no teacher more proficient... It will join you in solitude, accompany you in exile, serve as a candle in the dark, and entertain you in you loneliness. It will do you good, and ask no favor in return. It gives, and does not take.
Friend | Good | Loneliness | Solitude | Will | World | Teacher |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
The teacher does not produce knowledge in the mind; he merely helps the mind discover it for itself.
It is impossible to learn the art of poetry second-hand. Poetic inspiration comes only from the depths of the soul.
The glory of Friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to ne when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
Glory | Inspiration | Joy | Smile | Trust | Friendship |
Aspiration shows us the goal and the distance to it; inspiration encourages with a view to how far we have come. Aspiration gives us the map of the journey; inspiration furnishes the music to keep us marching.
Aspiration | Inspiration | Journey | Music | Aspiration |
The glory of Friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship. My friends have come unsought. The great God gave them to me.
Glory | God | Inspiration | Joy | Smile | Trust | Friendship | God | Friends |
Our free will can hinder the course of inspiration, and when the favourable gale of god’s grace swells the sails of our soul, it is in our power to refuse consent and thereby hinder the effect of the wind’s favour; but when our spirit sails along and makes it voyage prosperously, it is not we who make the gale of inspiration blow for us, nor we who make our sails swell with it, nor we who give motion to the ship of our heart; but we simply receive the gale, consent to its motion and let our ship sail under it, not hindering it by; our resistance.
Free will | God | Grace | Heart | Inspiration | Power | Receive | Soul | Spirit | Will |
Everyone who remembers his own educational experience remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the kingpin of the educational situation. He makes or breaks programs.
Experience | Teacher |
Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
The key to the art of listening is selectivity... Listen critically. Mentally challenge assertions, ideas, philosophies. Seek the truth with an open mind. Listen with your heart... Listen for growth. Be an inquisitive listener. Listen creatively... Listen to yourself. Listen to your deepest yearnings, your highest aspirations, your noblest impulses. Listen to the better man within you. Listen with depth. Be still and meditate. Listen with the ear of intuition for the inspiration of the Infinite.
Art | Better | Challenge | Growth | Heart | Ideas | Inspiration | Intuition | Listening | Man | Mind | Truth | Yearnings | Art |
Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz
A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.
Perpetual inspiration is as necessary to the life of goodness, holiness and happiness as perpetual respiration is necessary to animal life.
Inspiration | Life | Life | Happiness |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Reverence requires imagination and vital warmth; it requires least actual achievement or power. The child is weak and superficially foolish, the teacher is strong, and in an everyday sense wiser than the child. The teacher without reverence, or the bureaucrat without reverence, easily despises the child for these outward inferiorities.
Achievement | Imagination | Power | Reverence | Sense | Child | Teacher |