This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know." - John Holt, fully John Caldwell Holt
"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life" - John Lennon
"Our only security is our ability to change." - John Lilly, fully John Cunningham Lilly``
"Leadership is the ability to get individuals to work together for the common good and the best possible results while at the same time letting them know they did it themselves." - John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
"Knowledge alone is not enough to get desired results. You must have the more elusive ability to teach and to motivate. This defines a leader; if you can’t teach and you can’t motivate, you can’t lead." - John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
"Nothing progresses more rapidly in a heart set upon doing good than an ability to be useful. They who at first are timid, shy, awkward, in such efforts, soon acquire courage, expertness, and efficiency." - John Angell James
""Failing forward" is the ability to get back up after you've been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction. Don't buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can't be. Failure is not a one-time event; it's how you deal with life along the way. Until you breathe your last breath, you're still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better. You are the only person who can label what you do a failure. Failure is subjective. Don't allow the fire of adversity to make you a skeptic. Allow it to purify you. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others. Seek advice, but make sure it's from someone who has successfully handled mistakes or adversities." - John C. Maxwell
"The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership THE LAW OF THE LID — Leadership Ability Determines a Person’s Level of Effectiveness. THE LAW OF INFLUENCE — The True Measure of Leadership is Influence — Nothing More, Nothing Less. THE LAW OF PROCESS — Leadership Develops Daily, Not in a Day. THE LAW OF NAVIGATION — Anyone Can Steer the Ship, But It Takes a Leader to Chart the Course.. THE LAW OF ADDITION — Leaders Add Value by Serving Others. THE LAW OF SOLID GROUND — Truth is the Foundation of Leadership. THE LAW OF RESPECT — People Naturally Follow Leaders Stronger Than Themselves. THE LAW OF INTUITION — Leaders Evaluate Everything with a Leadership Bias. THE LAW OF MAGNETISM – Who You Are is Who You Attract. THE LAW OF CONNECTION. – Leaders Touch a Heart Before They Ask for a Hand. THE LAW OF THE INNER CIRCLE – A Leader’s Potential is Determined by Those Closest to Him. THE LAW OF EMPOWERMENT – Only Secure Leaders Give Power to Others. THE LAW OF THE PICTURE – People Do What People See. THE LAW OF BUY-IN – People Buy into the Leader, Then the Vision. THE LAW OF VICTORY – Leaders Find a Way for the Team to Win. THE LAW OF THE BIG MO – Momentum is a Leader’s Best Friend. THE LAW OF PRIORITIES – Leaders Understand that Activity is Not Necessarily Accomplishment. THE LAW OF SACRIFICE – A Leader Must Give Up to Go Up. THE LAW OF TIMING – When to Lead is As Important as What to Do and Where to Go. THE LAW OF EXPLOSIVE GROWTH – To Add Growth, Lead Followers – To Multiply, Lead Leaders. THE LAW OF LEGACY – A Leader’s Lasting Value is Measured by Succession." - John C. Maxwell
"The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it put your whole soul into it-every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have." - John D. Rockefeller III
"It is in deeds that man becomes aware of what his life really is, of his power to harm and to hurt, to wreck and to ruin; of his ability to derive joy and to bestow it on others; to relieve and to increase his own and other people’s tensions... What he may not dare to think, he often utters in deeds. The heart is revealed in the deeds." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Man is gradually losing his ability to be in charge of his own life. He is beginning to regard himself not only as a self-contradiction but as an impossibility." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods… Prayer does not come by default. It requires education, training, reflection, contemplation. It is not enough to join others; it is necessary to build a sanctuary within, brick by brick, instants of meditation, moments of devotion. This is particularly true in an age when overwhelming forces seem to conspire at destroying our ability to pray." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"The human being is uniquely graced with the ability to search the soul and reflect, For what purpose am I alive? Does my life have a meaning, a reason? Is there a need for my existence? Will anything on earth be impaired by my disappearance? Would my absence create a vacuum in the world? And if we say that there would be a void and an impairment in the world, and that this means that my life has value beyond its simple existence, is it incumbent upon me to fulfill a purpose in this life? Do I exist that I might build or restore?" - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. Modern man fell into the trap of believing that everything can be explained, that reality is a simple affair which has only to be organized in order to be mastered. " - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Create a vision and then ignite your organization to make this vision a reality. Get people so passionate about what they are doing that they cannot wait to execute this plan. Have great energy, competitive spirit and the ability to spark excitement and achieve results. Search for leaders who have the same qualities." - Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.
"Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response. " - John Kotter, fully John Paul Kotter
"Man's most sacred privilege is freedom of will, the ability to obey or disobey his Maker." - Joseph H. Hertz, fully Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz
"There's a very positive relationship between people's ability to accomplish any task and the time they're willing to spend on it." - Joyce Brothers
"The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership." - William O. Douglas, fully Judge William Orville Douglas
"Genius is the ability to see the self-evident where the rest of the world turns blind." - Kedar Joshi
"The dangers and the difficulties of the present time are great.... The troubles of the 20th century are not unlike those of adolescence -- rapid growth beyond the ability of organizations to manage, uncontrollable emotion, and a desperate search for identity. Out of adolescence, however, comes maturity in which physical growth with all its attendant difficulties comes to an end, but in which growth continues in knowledge, in spirit, in community, and in love; it is to this that we look forward as a human race. This goal, once seen with our eyes, will draw our faltering feet toward it." - Kenneth Boulding, fully Kenneth Ewart Boulding
"The responsibility which rests upon man is proportional to the ability which he possesses and the opportunity which he faces. Perhaps that responsibility is no greater for him than was that of Notharctus or Eohippus or a trilobite, each in his own day, but because of man's unique abilities it is the greatest responsibility that has ever rested upon any of the earth's offspring. " - Kirtley Mather, fully Kirtley Fletcher Mathew
"Seven Laws of Salem: Give children the opportunity for self-discovery. [Give them a chance to discover themselves.] Make the children meet with triumph and defeat. [See to it that they experience both success and defeat.] Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement in the common cause. [See to it that they have the chance to forget themselves in the pursuit of a common cause.] Provide periods of silence. [See to it that there are periods of silence.] Train the imagination. [Train the imagination, the ability to participate and plan.] Make games important but not predominant. [Take sports and games seriously, but only as part of the whole.] Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the enervating sense of privilege. [Free them of the rich and influential parents and from the paralysing influence of wealth and privelege.] " - Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
"Strength of character means the ability to overcome resentment against others, to hide hurt feelings, and to forgive quickly." - Lawrence G. Lovasik
"Opportunities correspond with almost mathematical accuracy to the ability to use them." - Lillian Whiting
"It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test." - Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
"If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction." - Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
"The class of those who have the ability to think their own thoughts is separated by an unbridgeable gulf from the class of those who cannot." - Ludwig von Mises, fully Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises
"There's not a single chemical ability present in animals and plants that isn't already present in bacteria. The only thing that makes an organism unique is the way it combines them." - Lynn Margulis
"How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded! Community requires the ability to expose our wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be affected by the wounds of others... But even more important is the love that arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"I suspect people who are indecisive are people who are far too enamored of analysis in all settings and are destroying their ability to make an instinctive judgment through over-analysis and that's dangerous." - Malcolm Gladwell
"Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone elses head. " - Malcolm Gladwell
"There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditiionally emphasizes the need for limited government, light regulations, low taxes and maximum labour-market flexibility. Its success has ben shown above all in the ability to create new jobs, in which it is consistently more successful than Europe." - Margaret Thatcher, fully Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, née Roberts
"In the century now dawning, spirituality, visionary consciousness, and the ability to build and mend human relationships will be more important for the fate and safety of this nation than our capacity to forcefully subdue an enemy. Creating the world we want is a much more subtle but more powerful mode of operation than destroying the one we don't want." - Marianne Williamson
"We love old travelers: we love to hear them prate, drivel and lie; we love them for their asinine vanity, their ability to bore, their luxuriant fertility of imagination, their startling, brilliant, overwhelming mendacity." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world – wide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools. We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but distrust of one's ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher results, often hampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure at the outset." - Mary Baker Eddy
"What would it be like to have not only color vision but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others. " - Mary Catherine Bateson
"Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist." - Mary Kay Ash, fully Mary Kathlyn Wagner Ash
"It is important for you to have a goal. You simply can't get there if you don't know where you are going. Begin to build in your mind a dream. The write it down and make your goal realistic. Aim high enough that you will have to stretch your ability and your potential to reach it." - Mary Kay Ash, fully Mary Kathlyn Wagner Ash
"The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason." - Marya Mannes
"Altogether, Cavalry operations are exceedingly difficult, knowledge of the country is absolutely necessary, and ability to comprehend the situation at a glance, and an audacious spirit, are everything." - Maurice de Saxe, Count of Saxony
"It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor." - Max Eastman, fully Max Forrester Eastman
"Visionaries have the unique ability to dream of what's possible and then make it a reality. We are excited to watch these visionaries use technology to help students develop skills in collaboration, critical thinking and teamwork that they'll need to compete in the global economy." - Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell
"Everybody has talent, but ability takes hard work." - Michael Jordan, fully Michael Jeffrey Jordon, aka MJ, Air Jordan and His Airness