This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold and land, defended ideas, imposed religions. We have held that a death toll was a necessary part of every human achievement, whether sport, war, or industry. A moment’s rage over the horror of it, and we have sunk into indifference." - Ida Tarbell, fully Ida Minerva Tarbell
"No man was ever endowed with a judgment so correct and judicious, in regulating his life, but that circumstances, time and experience would teach him something new, and apprise him that of those things with which he knew nothing; and that those ideas which in theory appeared the most advantageous were found, when brought into practice, to be altogether inapplicable." -
"Ideas are the factors that lift civilization. They create revolutions. There is more dynamite in an idea than in many bombs." - John H. Vincent, fully John Heyl Vincent
"This is man: a writer of books, a putter-down of words, a painter of pictures, a maker of ten thousand philosophies. He grows passionate over ideas, he hurls scorn and mockery at another's work, he finds the one way, the true way, for himself, and calls all others false--yet in the billion books upon the shelves there is not one that can tell him how to draw a single fleeting breath in peace and comfort. He makes histories of the universe, he directs the destiny of the nations, but he does not know his own history, and he cannot direct his own destiny with dignity or wisdom for ten consecutive minutes. " - Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe
"Facts, when combined with ideas, constitute the greatest force in the world. They are greater than armaments, greater than finance, greater than science, business and law because they constitute the common denominator of all of them." - Carl William Ackerman
"In the life of a nation ideas are not the only things of value. Sentiment also is of great value; and the way to foster sentiment in a people, and to develop it in the young, is to have a well-recorded past, and to be familiar with it." - Joseph Anderson, fully Joseph Inslee Anderson
"The ideas of the average decently informed person are so warped, and of perspective, and ignorant, and entirely perverse and wrong and crude, on nearly every moral subject, that the task of discussing anything with him seriously and fully and to the end is simply appalling." - Arnold Bennett, fully Enoch Thomas Arnold Bennett
"Ours is the age of substitutes; instead of language, we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; instead of genuine ideas, bright ideas." - Eric Bentley
"Ideas are, like matter, infinitely divisible. It is not given to us to get down, so to speak, to their final atoms, but to their molecular groupings the way is never ending, and the progress infinitely delightful and profitable." - Christian Nestell Bovee
"Intellectually, as well as politically, the direction of all true progress is toward greater freedom, and long an endless succession of ideas." - Christian Nestell Bovee
"Intellectually, as well as politically, the direction of all true progress is toward greater freedom, and along an endless succession of ideas." - John Christian Bovee
"Straight-away the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God, and not only do I see distinct themes in my mind's eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies, and orchestration. Measure by measure the finished product is revealed to me when I am in those rare, inspired moods." - Johannes Brahms
"There are other similarities between poetry and children's speech. Poets tend to look for significant evocative detail --something straight out of life -- to carry their meaning, and to avoid the vaguely general or abstract terms. With young children it is not a matter of choice. Their ideas must take a concrete form of expression because they have not mastered the art of masking and handling (Sign-mind) abstraction. A five year old boy in an infants' class once said, "Oh, yes, I know Geography. Its polar bears at the top and penguins at the bottom."" -
"A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow time enough to consider it when it becomes today." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Art is the effort of man to express the ideas which nature suggests to him of a power above nature, whether that power be within the recesses of his own being, or in the Great First Cause of which nature, like himself, is but the effect." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern. New books revive and redecorate old ideas; old books suggest and invigorate new ideas." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"To the thinker, the most trifling external object often suggests ideas, which extend, link after link, from earth to heaven." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"Time was invented by Almighty God in order to give ideas a chance." - Nicholas Murray Butler
"An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better." - Samuel Butler
"Every new idea has something of the pain and peril of childbirth about it; ideas are just as mortal and just as immortal as organized beings are." - Samuel Butler
"There is only one way in which a person acquires a new idea; by combination or association of two or more ideas he already has into a new juxtaposition in such a manner as to discover a relationship among them of which he was not previously aware." - Francis A. Carter
"Ideas are the mightiest influence on earth. One great thought breathed in to a man may regenerate him." - William Ellery Channing
"Events are only the shells of ideas; and often it is the fluent thought of ages that is crystallized in a moment by the stroke of a pen or the point of a bayonet." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first." - David H. Comins
"Ideas are precious. An idea is the only lever which really moves the world." - Arthur F Corey
"Teachers of today must have the ability to bring personal meaning to ideas as they investigate, interpret and integrate their thoughts. They must possess their own unique conceptual frameworks on which to hang ideas. They should be able to select, and build upon, significant ideas, observe relationships, and distinguish essential matters from irrelevant and incidental ones." - Dean C. Corrigan
"The philosopher contemplates ideas; the teacher energizes ideas; the student generates ideas." - Lionel Crocker
"It is not solutions that make ideas attractive. It is unsolved possibilities." - Russell W. Davenport, fully Russell Wheeler Davenport
"Man-made barriers, laws, social customs and prejudices continue to keep a majority of women in an inferior position without full control of our lives and bodies. From infancy throughout life, in personal and public relations, in the family, in the schools, in every occupation and profession, too often we find our individuality, our capabilities, our earning powers diminished by discriminatory practices and outmoded ideas of what a woman is, what a woman can do, and what a woman must be... We lack effective political and economic power We have only minor and insignificant roles in making, interpreting and enforcing our laws, in running our political parties, businesses, unions, schools and institutions, in directing the media, in governing our country, in deciding issues of war or peace. We do not seek special privileges, but we demand as a human right a full voice and role for women in determining the destiny of our world, our nation, our families and our individual lives." - Declaration of American Women NULL
"Genuine ignorance is... profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish water-proof to new ideas." - John Dewey
"Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference." - John Dewey
"Great ideas have such radiant strength. They cross space and time like avalanches: they carry along with them whatever they touch. They are the only riches that one shares without ever dividing them." - Georges Duhamel, Pen name Denis Thevenin
"Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone." - Albert Einstein
"Progress in industry depends very largely on the enterprise of deep-thinking men, who are ahead of the time in their ideas." - William Ellis
"Great discoveries or ideas have one thing in common. Before they are achieved they are considered incredible and not worth the effort deemed necessary to make them real. After they are achieved, it is incredible that we should be without them." - M. Stanton Evans, fully Medford Stanton Evans
"Men who accomplish great things in the industrial world are the ones who have faith in the money producing power of ideas." - Charles Sherlock Fillmore
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
"No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
"A man's life is made by the hours when great ideas lay hold upon him. And, except by way of living persons, there is no channel down which great ideas come oftener into human lives than by way of books." - Harry Emerson Fosdick
"Death must obliterate all memories and affections and ideas and laws, or the awakening in the next world will be amid the welcomes, and loves and raptures of those who left us with tearful farewells, and with dying promises that they would wait to welcome us when we should arrive. And so they do. Not sorrowfully, not anxiously, but lovingly they wait to bid us welcome." - Randolph S. Foster, fully Randolph Sinks Foster