This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Any ideas, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought." - Napoleon Hill
"First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination. " - Napoleon Hill
"Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive." - Napoleon Hill
"Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle is a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling." - Nathaniel Branden
"You learn by trying out ideas, and hearing reactions to them, and hearing what other people have to say about the topic, and formulating programs, and trying to pursue them, and seeing where they break down, and getting some experience, and so on." - Noam Chomsky, fully Avram Noam Chomsky
"A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life." - Norman Cousins
"The working class is loyal to friends, not ideas." - Norman Mailer, fully Norman Kingsley Mailer
"Love is a very complex emotion, requiring a richness of personality and a great variety of talents.. It develops also into the abstract feeling for things or ideas, for beauty and learning, and, finally, into a feeling for the Supreme Being." - Norman Vincent Peale
"When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas [and] the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Ideals are ideas or beliefs when these are objects not only of contemplation or affirmation but also of hope, desire, endeavor, admiration and resolve." - Ralph Barton Perry
"A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, or in the realm of intuitions and duty." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion. A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, namely, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, in the realm of intuitions and duty." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are not better than dreams." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"They only who build on Ideas, build for eternity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We are prisoners of ideas." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A true teacher is always at home in the depths of the Self. He never sees a difference between himself and others, is never moved by false ideas or distinctions (for example, the idea tht he himself is an enlightened sage, that he has realized the truth and attained freedom, while the others around him pine away in bondage and ignorance). His courage and self-control are at times unshakable. No experience that he encounters can lead him astray." -
"Thinking is hard work. One can't bear burdens and ideas at the same time." - Remy de Gourmont
"Very simple ideas are within the reach of only very complicated minds." - Remy de Gourmont
"If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea." - Richard Hofstadter
"If you want to plant for days—plant flowers. If you want to plant for years—plant trees. If you want to plant for life—plant ideas." - Robert Gilbert, aka Rob
"Freedom is perhaps the most resonant, deeply held American value. In some ways, it defines the good in both personal and political life. Yet freedom turns out to mean being left alone by others, not having other people’s values, ideas, or styles of life forced upon one, being free of arbitrary authority in work, family, and political life. What it is that one might do with that freedom is much more difficult for Americans to define." - Robert Bellah, fully Robert Neelly Bellah
"Ideas define our place in the universe, our relations with other people; ideas determine what is important and what is not important, what is fair and what is not fair, what is worth believing and what is not worth believing. Ideas give life meaning." - Robert C. Solomon
"Spiritual teachers emphasize that by abandoning our preconceived ideas and ordinary perceptual filters, we can experience high states of consciousness, inexpressible delight, and a sense of innocence and mystery about existence... the transfiguration of life from a vale of tears into a celebration of truth and beauty." - Ronald S. Miller
"If you wish to move in the One Way do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas. Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with full Enlightenment. The wise man strives to no goals but the foolish man fetters himself. There is one Dharma [Truth, Universal Law, elements of existence], not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. To seek Mind with discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes." - Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences." - Susan B. Anthony, fully Susan Brownell Anthony
"A pupil who suggests new ideas to his master is a sage." - Zohar or The Zohar, literally "Splendor or Radiance" NULL
"A President does not have to be a great creative or innovative thinker, as helpful as that may be. For an almost endless flow of new ideas will almost certainly come to him and his real task is to discriminate and choose among them. Similarly, he does not personally have to be a great administrator, but he has to choose and guide those who are. He has to be as discriminating in his judgment of men as of ideas." - Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen
"Our ideas about life inevitably shape its structure, and, because they are usually too simple, it is wise to reflect on them... simple life axioms... The first is afraid of failure, yet it is surely impossible to have love in your life at all without the possibility of its loss. The second is afraid of self-revelation and vulnerability, and yet how can there be love without an opening of the heart and considerable emotional risk? The third is afraid of mortal love - the knowledge that although love itself may be eternal, the people who love are faced with the inevitable separation of death." - Thomas Moore
"False wit is a fatiguing search after cunning traits, an affectation of saying in enigmas what others have already said naturally, to hang together ideas which are incompatible, to divide that which ought to be united, of seizing false relations." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"Let us leave every man free to search within himself and lose himself in his ideas." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"Society - the only field where the sexes have ever met on terms of equality, the arena where character is formed and studied, the cradle and the realm of public opinion, the crucible of ideas, the world’s university, at once a school and a theater, the spur and the crown of ambition, the tribunal which unmasks pretension and stamps real merit, the power that gives government leave to be, and outruns the lazy Church in fixing the moral sense of the eye." - Wendell Phillips
"Action releases truth so it can inspire and regenerate; action releases ideas so they can bless and benefit." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"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
"Ideas are the beginning of all things." - 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." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs; diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought; superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"The greatest difference between the two parties lies in the fact that they back different people, not different ideas, for office." - William F. Buckley, Jr.
"It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to brood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui." - William Hazlitt
"There are few minds in a century that can look upon a new idea without terror. Fortunately for the rest of us, there are very few new ideas about." - W. Somerset Maugham, fully William Somerset Maugham
"The despotism of will in ideas is styled plan, project, character, obstinacy; its despotism in desires is called passion." - Antoine de Rivarol, also known as Comte de Rivarol
"In short, the actions of man are never free; they are always the necessary consequences of his temperament, of the received ideas, and of the notions, either true or false, which he has formed to himself of happiness." - Baron d’Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, born Paul Heinrich Dietrich
"Everybody knows that the long continuance of a routine of habit makes us lethargic, while a succession of surprises wonderfully brightens the ideas. Where there is a motion, where history is a-making, there is the focus of mental activity, and it has been said that the arts and sciences reside within the temple of Janus, waking when that is open, but slumbering when it is closed." - C. S. Peirce, fully Charles Sanders Peirce
"Without compassion, we will never know anyone or anything, not even our own story. Too much judgment, too many ideas and attitudes will stand in the way of the fundamental principle that we are similar to, connected with, and part of everything else." - Deena Metzger
"There can be no music without ideology. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes. Only Beethoven was a forerunner of the revolutionary movement. If you read his letters, you will see how often he wrote to his friends that he wished to give new ideas to the public and rouse it to revolt against its masters." - Dmitri Shostakovich, fully Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich