This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?" - Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see. " - Edward de Bono
"The only real secularism in a bad sense is isolation from the full stream of natural interests. When business tries to go its own way in defiance of the common good, it tends to become secular. But the same is also true of religion. When the church withdraws into its sanctuary and denies its organic relation to scientific knowledge or to the institutions of society around it, there results a deadly secularization of religion. Too often this has happened, and far too widely it is happening today. It happens not only with those sects which cultivate an intense emotionalism, like the Holy Rollers, or the sects that stress other-worldliness, but to many old and settled churches whose theologians speak in dialectical tongues and declare that the God in whom they believe is beyond the reach of man’s best efforts." -
"The system of morality which Socrates made it the business of his life to teach was raised upon the firm basis of religion. The first principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind are, according to this excellent moralist, laws of God; and the conclusive argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs from these principles with impunity." - William Enfield, aka "The Enquirer"
"The first business of a philosopher is to part with self-conceit." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"No man is a success in business unless he loves his work. " - Florence Scovel Shinn
"Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that, which the physicians call predigestion, or hasty digestion; which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch, by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business." - Francis Bacon
"The surest method of arriving at a knowledge of God's eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. God's will does not come to us in the whole, but in fragments, and generally in small fragments. It is our business to piece it together, and to live it into one orderly vocation. " - Frederick William Faber
"The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth. " - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it." - George Frederick Will
"The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice, and securing the blessings of liberty." - George Frederick Will
"Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool out of you that you will know yourself for one, and begin to be wise" - George William McDonald
"Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment. " - Grenville Kleiser
"I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises - but only performance is reality. " - Harold Geneen, fully Harold "Hal" Sydney Geneen
"In the business world, everyone is always working at legitimate cross purposes, governed by self interest." - Harold Geneen, fully Harold "Hal" Sydney Geneen
"In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. " - Harold Geneen, fully Harold "Hal" Sydney Geneen
"If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn't any limit to what you can do with your business and your life. Ideas are any man's greatest asset. " - Harvey Samuel Firestone
"Monopoly is business at the end of its journey." - Henry Demarest Lloyd
"There ought to be more scrupulous honesty in big business men than in any other human relation. For big business requires teamwork on a gigantic scale." - Henry Latham Doherty
"The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
"It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business. " - Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation." - Herman E. Daly
"If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires. " - Horace Traubel
"When electricity was invented people became discontent with oil lamps. And so our missionaries employ this sound business principle: Show the people something better and they’ll want it." - Horace William Baden Donegan
"A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition. " - J. C. Penney, formally James Cash Penney
"The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress." - J. C. Penney, formally James Cash Penney
"Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." - Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.
"Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk into the language-river. Listen to the ocean, and bring your talky business to an end Traditional words are just babbling in that presence, and babbling is a substitute for sight." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
"There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are. They have the gift of kindness or courage or loyalty or integrity. It really matters very little whether they are behind the wheel of a truck or running a business or bringing up a family. The teach the truth by living it." - James A. Garfield
"The great secret both of health and successful industry is the absolute yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and diversion of the hour--never permitting the one to infringe in the least degree upon the other." - Jean Charles Sismondi, fully Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
"People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained." - Jerome K. Jerome, fully Jerome Klapka Jerome
"Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible, hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather it is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past." - Joan Borysenko
"We are involved in a life that passes understanding and our highest business is our daily life. " - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this." - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct." - John Locke
"[Man] is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things—property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobile are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know—that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence." - John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck
"The business of America is business." - Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
"A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship." - John D. Rockefeller, fully John Davidson Rockefeller I
"25 Lessons: Lead More, Manage Less 1. Lead. 2. Manage less. 3. Articulate your vision. 4. Simplify. 5. Get less formal. 6. Energize others. 7. Face reality. 8. See change as an opportunity. 9. Get good ideas from everywhere. 10. Follow up. Build a Winning Organization. 11. Get rid of bureaucracy. 12. Eliminate boundaries. 13. Put values first. 14. Cultivate leaders. 15. Create learning culture. Harness Your People 16. Involve everyone. 17. Make everybody a team player. 18. Stretch. 19. Instill confidence. 20. Make business fun. Build the Market-Leading Company 21. Be number 1 or number 2 22. Live quality. 23. Constantly focus on innovation. 24. Live speed. 25. Behave like a small company." - Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.
"Involve everyone and welcome great ideas from everywhere. Anyone can be a leader, just so long as they contribute, and the most meaningful way for anyone to contribute is to come up with a good idea. Business is all about getting the best ideas from everyone. New ideas are the lifeblood of the organization, the fuel that makes it run." - Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.
"To survive, men and business and corporations must serve." - John Henry Patterson
"To feel greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural Beauty, is the sole business of poetry. The rest's diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the intricate ideas,the love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason." - Robinson Jeffers, fully John Robinson Jeffers
"There is nothing more requisite in business than dispatch." - Joseph Addison
"They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski
"Great conquerors, we read, have been both animated, and also, in a great measure, formed by reading the exploits of former conquerors. Why may not the same effect be expected from the history of philosophy to philosophers? May not even more be expected in this case? The wars of many of those conquerors, who received this advantage from history, had no proper connection with former wars: they were only analogous to them. Whereas the whole business of philosophy, diversified as it is, is but one; it being one and the same great scheme, that all philosophers, of all ages and nations, have been conducting, from the beginning of the world; so that the work being the same, the. labours of one are not only analogous to those of of another, but in an immediate manner subservient to them; and one philosopher succeeds another in the same field; as one Roman proconsul succeeded another in carrying on the same war, and pursuing the same conquests, in the same country. In this case, an intimate knowledge of what has been done before us cannot but greatly facilitate our future progress, if it be not absolutely necessary to it." - Joseph Priestley
"The American Republic and American business are Siamese twins; they came out of the same womb at the same time; they are born in the same principles and when American business dies, the American Republic will die, and when the American Republic dies, American business will die." - Josia Bailey, fully Josiah William Bailey
"Let this be understood, then, at starting; that the patient conquest of difficulties which rise in the regular and legitimate channels of business and enterprise is not only essential in securing the success which you seek but it is essential to that preparation of your mind, requisite for the enjoyment of your successes, and for retaining them when gained. So, day by day, and week by week; so month after month, and year after year, work on, and in that progress gain in strength and symmetry, and nerve and knowledge, that when success, patiently and bravely worked for, shall come, it may find you prepared to receive it and keep it. " - Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland