This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Character is not made in a crisis - it is only exhibited." - Robert Freeman
"Most forms of human creativity have one aspect n common: the attempt to give some sense to the various impressions, emotions, experiences, and actions that fill our lives, and thereby to give some meaning and value to our existence... The crisis of our time in the Western world is that the search for meaning has become meaningless for many of us." - Victor Weisskopf, fully Victor "Viki" Frederick Weisskopf
"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become." - Brooke Foss Westcott
"The alternative to recalling and interpreting dreams is not always pleasant. Individuals cannot expect to drift forever. If they do not puzzle out their identity, and the direction of their lives by the aid of their dreams, then they may be brought, by the relentless action of their own pent-up souls, into some crisis which requires that they come to terms with themselves. It may be a medical crisis. It may be the end of a marriage or of a job. It may be depression or withdrawal." - Edgar Cayce, known as the "Sleeping Prophet"
"In a terrible crisis there is only one element more helpless than the poor, and that is the rich." - Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow
"Duty is above all consequences, and often, at a crisis of difficulty, commands us to throw them overboard. It commands us to look neither to the right, nor to the left, but straight onward. Hence every act of duty is an act of faith. It is performed in the assurance that God will take care of the consequences, and will so order the course of the world, that, whatever the immediate results may be, His word shall not return to Him void." -
"When I began to examine just how wealth is created, it seemed to me plain that it arises not from taking, but from giving. People get rich by giving rather than by taking, and this seemed to me to be a very important perception, because the reason for the crisis in capitalism today, it seems to me, is not its practical achievements, but rather the perception of its moral character." - George F Gilder
"A world of little cares is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows nothing of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants; and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin." - Thomas Paine
"Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt... We shall continue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man." - Lynn White, Jr., fully Lynn Townsend White, Jr.
"No leader can safely mumble at moments of crisis." - Brock Brewer
"All spiritual growth takes place by leaps and bounds, both in the individual and, as here, in the community. The crisis is to be regarded as a nexus of growth." - Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
"Not every age finds its great man, and not every great endowment finds its time. There may not exist great men for things that do not exist. In any case, the dominating feeling of our age, the desire of the masses for a higher standard of living, cannot possibly become concentrated in one great figure. What we see before us is a general leveling down, and we might declare the rise of great individuals an impossibility if our prophetic souls did not warn us that the crisis may suddenly pass from the contemptible field of “property and gain” on to quite another and that then the “right man” may appear overnight – and all the world will follow in his train." - Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
"The crisis is an expedient of nature, like a fever, and the fanaticisms are signs that there still exist for men things they prize more than life and property." - Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
"I have come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom… As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable, or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized." - Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
"Religion declined not because it was refuted but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"It is only in the depths of crisis and despair that the fear of losing one’s personality breeds millennial hopes of rescue: otherwise, complacency prevails." - Stanley Hoffmann and Inge Hoffmann
"He must summon his people to be with him – yet stand above, not squat beside them. He must question his own wisdom and judgment – but not too severely. He must hear the opinions and heed the powers of others – but not too abjectly. He must appease the doubts of his critic and assuage the hurts of the adversary – sometimes. He must ignore their views and achieve their defeat – sometimes… He must respect action – without becoming intoxicated with his own. He must have a sense of purpose inspiring him to magnify the trivial event to serve his distant aim – and to grasp the thorniest crisis as if it were the merest nettle. He must be pragmatic, calculating, and earthbound – and still know when to spurn the arithmetic of expediency for the act of brave imagination, the sublime gamble with no hope other than the boldness of his vision" - Emmet John Hughes
"Every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. Each can spell either salvation or doom." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so that it can no longer be ignored." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The art of crisis management, now widely acknowledged to be the essence of statecraft, owes its vogue to the merger of politics and spectacle. Propaganda seeks to create in the public a chronic sense of crisis, which in turn justifies the expansion of executive power and the secrecy surrounding it." - Christopher Kit Lasch
"Where the masses of people must cooperate in an uncertain and eruptive environment, it is usually necessary to secure unity and flexibility without real consent. The symbol does that… It enormously sharpens the intention of the group and welds that group, as nothing else in a crisis can weld it, to purposeful action." -
"The present world crisis... is a crisis of man’s spirit. It is a great religious and moral upheaval of the human race, and we do not really know half the causes of this upheaval." - Thomas Merton
"What one decides to do in a crisis depends upon one’s philosophy of life, and that philosophy cannot be changed by an incident. If one hasn’t any philosophy in a crisis, others make the decision." - Jeanette Rankin
"It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless." - Fritz A. Rothschild
"Families in crisis will do everything, exhaust every resource, except to change themselves!" - Daniel V. Papero, aka "Dan"
"An idiot can face a crisis - it's this day to day living that wears you out." - Anton Chekhov, fully Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
"Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem." - Eric Hoffer
"The public is bored by foreign affairs until a crisis arises; and then it is guided by; feelings rather than by thoughts." - Harold Nicolson, fully Sir Harold George Nicolson
"A crisis does not always appear to a policy-maker as a series of dramatic events. Usually it imposes itself as an exhausting agenda of petty chores demanding both concentration and endurance. One is forced to react to scraps of information in very limited spans of time; longing for full knowledge, one must chart a route through the murk of unknowing." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"All too frequently a problem evaded is a crisis invited." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"In crisis the most daring course is often the safest. The riskiest course in my experience has been gradual escalation that the opponent matches step by step, inevitably reaching a higher level of violence and often an inextricable stalemate." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"This is not a legal or legislative issue alone… We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is a clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities… We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people." -
"[The Depression] is not a crisis of poverty, but a crisis of abundance. It is not the harshness and the niggardliness of nature which are oppressing us, but our own incompetence and wrong-headedness which hinder us from making use of the bountifulness of inventive science and cause us to be overwhelmed by its generous fruits." - John Maynard Keynes
"Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger." - Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
"The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat; men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority - demanding, not the faculties of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the readiness to sacrifice - comes graceful and beloved as a bride." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Crisis is creative... Out of crises flow new ideas, new approaches, new patterns, new inventions, new discoveries, new leadership... Crisis is challenge. It can challenge you to create a new life. Out of disappointment and defeat, out of illness and despair you can find victory." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"Duty is above all consequences, and often, at a crisis of difficulty, commands us to throw them overboard. It commands us to look neither to the right, nor to the left, but straight onward. Hence every act of duty is an act of faith. It is performed in the assurance that God will take care of the consequences, and will so order the course of the world, that, whatever the immediate results may be, His word shall not return to Him void." - Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL
"For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role within the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. Only through this story of how the Universe came to be in the beginning and how it came to be as it is does a person come to appreciate the meaning of life or to derive the psychic energy needed to deal effectively with those crisis moments that occur in the life of the individual and in the life of the society. Such a story . . . communicates the most sacred of mysteries... story not only interprets the past, it also guides and inspires our shaping of the future." -
"For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role within the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. Only through this story of how the Universe came to be in the beginning and how it came to be as it is does a person come to appreciate the meaning of life or to derive the psychic energy needed to deal effectively with those crisis moments that occur in the life of the individual and in the life of the society. Such a story communicates the most sacred of mysteries. Our story not only interprets the past, it also guides and inspires our shaping of the future." -
"My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious" - Fidel Castro, fully Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
"The crisis of yesterday is the joke of to-morrow." - H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
"The first question to be answered by any individual or any social group, facing a hazardous situation, is whether the crisis is to be met as a challenge to strength or as an occasion for despair." - Harry Emerson Fosdick
"Even if we could grow our way out of the crisis and delay the inevitable and painful reconciliation of virtual and real wealth, there is the question of whether this would be a wise thing to do. Marginal costs of additional growth in rich countries, such as global warming, biodiversity loss and roadways choked with cars, now likely exceed marginal benefits of a little extra consumption. The end result is that promoting further economic growth makes us poorer, not richer." - Herman E. Daly
"The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies. " - Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith