This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"I do dimly perceive that while everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness." - Shakti Gawain
"Freedom of speech and expression, and the right of all men to disseminate ideas, popular or unpopular, are fundamental to ordered liberty. Government has not power or right to control men’s minds, thoughts and expressions… If the First Amendment protects the freedom to express ideas, it necessarily follows that it must protect the freedom to generate ideas. Without the latter protection, the former is meaningless." -
"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
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative [or creation] there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too... Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Law is not served by power is an illusion, but power not ruled by law is a menace." - Arthur Goldberg, fully Arthur Joseph Goldberg
"If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you." - Charles Gordon, fully Charles George Gordon
"The power is to set the agenda. What we print and what we don’t print matter a lot." - Katharine Graham
"We have become so preoccupied with power and control over nature that we have lost an important dimension of our being, the disposition of thankfulness, of commemoration, of perceiving and enjoying something for its own sake. Instead of viewing these immediate objects of our environment in terms of their own being, we have come to regard them solely in terms of what they are for us. And to such an exploitative mentality, nature’s own voice becomes mute. Approached as material merely, to be worked up and pressed into the service of a self-styled lord of creation, she contains no revelation and no blessing." - J. Glenn Gray
"From the Mahzor Hadash: There is holiness when we strive to be true to the best we know. There is holiness when we are kind to someone who cannot possibly be of service to us. There is holiness when we promote family harmony. There is holiness when we forget what divides us and remember what unites us. There is holiness when we are willing to be laughed at for what we believe in. There is holiness when we love – truly, honestly, and unselfishly. There is holiness when we remember the lonely and bring cheer into a dark corner. There is holiness when we share – our bread, our ideas, our enthusiasms. There is holiness when we gather to pay to Him who gave us the power to pray." - Sidney Greenberg
"It means that there is significance in everything that happens in the world, and a heart, a concern, and a power stronger than all the powers of the world which is able to fulfill the purpose of its care for man." - Romano Guardini
"Ambition is not a reprehdnsible quality, nor are ambitious men to be censured, if they seek glory through honorable and honest means. In fact, it is they who produce great and excellent works. Those who lack this passion are cold spirits, inclined towards laziness than activity. But ambition is pernicious and detestable when it has as its sole end power." - Francesco Guicciardini
"The doctrine that the will alone is the way to power is a most woe-begone theory for the relief to the morally sick." - James Arthur Hadfield
"Suffering is not the point of living. It’s the background, the context, against which we discover love’s power over death, over illness. Suffering is what lends love its supremacy over death." - Allan J Hamilton
"The mind is the greatest secret in all of medicine. You cannot heal if you cannot feel. Healing isn’t from the brain but the soul. You’ve got to look for it in the right place, armed with the correct attitude. Without impeccability, there is no healing power." - Allan J Hamilton
"The perpetual danger which besets religion is that it may substitute gentility and aestheticism for prophetic insight and power." - Georgia Harkness
"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect in human weakness and in human responsibility. Without a global resolution in human consciousness nothing will change for the better and catastrophe will be unavoidable." - Václav Havel
"The power of bureaucracy is mainly passive, not active. IT consists in the capacity to withhold needed services rather than in the capacity to oppose political superiors directly." - Hugh Heclo
"Death is the radical refutation of man’s power and a stark reminder of the necessity to relate to a meaning which lies beyond the dimension of human time. Humanity without death would be arrogance without end. Nobility has its root in humanity, and humanity derived much of its power from the thought of death." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"What the world needs is a sense of ultimate embarrassment. Modern man has the power and the wealth to overcome poverty and disease, but he has no wisdom to overcome suspicion. We are guilty of misunderstanding the meaning of existence; we are guilty of distorting our goals and misrepresenting our souls. We are better than our assertions, more intricate, more profound than our theories maintain." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"The kingdom of God is neither an unconditional divine gift sent down from heaven all at once, nor a simple human task to be completed in a few generations. It is both a gift and a task: an infinitely difficult, infinitely glorious divine-human undertaking requiring all God’s power and all man’s devotion, and even so stretching on from age to age as though it were endless." - Walter Marshall Horton
"If you do not see clearly, but are still arrogant about your attainment, then you will totally lose whatever power you have gained. The relationship between your arrogance and your abilities is quite exact." - Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun
"The essence of religion is belief in a relation to God involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation… duty to a moral power higher than the state." - Charles Evans Hughes, Sr.
"The same principles [that apply in polytheism] naturally deify mortals, superior in power, courage, or understanding, and produce hero-worship." - David Hume
"The possessor of a sound heart puts to test his power by entering into big adventures." - Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
"For tradition to be alive it has to be allowed to be a fountain of power for things undreamt of, things to come." - Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
"[Prayer] The very moment itself of the soul, putting itself into a personal relation of contact with the mysterious power - of which it feels the presence." - William James
"Social evolution is a resultant of the interaction of two wholly distinct factors: the individual… bearing all the power of initiative and origination in his hands; and, second, the social environment, with its power of adopting or rejecting both him and his gifts. Both factors are essential to change. The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community." - William James
"We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul." - William James
"There is a magic power in your own hands. Take your vital decisions – they may be grave and momentous and far-reaching in their consequences. Think a hundred times before you take any decision, but once a decision is taken, stand by it as one man." - Fatima Jinna, also known as Madr-e-Millat, mother of the nation
"Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"The artist's imagination may wander far from nature. But as long as it is a living, moving power in his brain, isn't it just as real as any other natural phenomenon? The artist justifies his existence only when he can transform his imagination into truth." - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
"Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
"Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice… Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is radiant." - Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
"[Power] waxes in secrecy and wanes in bright light." - Ted Kennedy, fully Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy
"Joy is a constituent of life, a necessity of life; it is an element of life’s value and life’s power. As every man has need of joy, so too, every man has a right to joy… It is a condition of religious living." - Paul Wilhelm von Keppler, Bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg
"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Do not care overly much for wealth or power or fame, or one day you will meet someone who cares for none of these things, and you will realize how poor you have become." - Rudyard Kipling
"Power without responsibility: the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages." - Rudyard Kipling
"Immense hidden powers seem to lurk in the unconscious depths of even the most common man - indeed, of all people without exception. It is these powers, when put under pressure, that are responsible for all great creative efforts. The men who make history are those who - consciously or unconsciously - turn the switch on the inner switchboards of human character. Pour out all your fears and anxieties, malicious joy and greed and hatred, and you will be astonished at the terrific amount of power which is pent up in your unconscious mind. We can release this power and transform it from negative into positive power, only by bringing into the open, into the light of consciousness, and by accepting ourselves as we are, even though the mountains of debts seem to crush us. This is the principle of honesty. And it is clear that it can be applied only if connected with the principle of faith." - Fritz Künkel
"All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. If you want to govern people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize you have enough, you are truly rich." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"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
"Enough of us praying often enough could make everybody in the world look up and listen to God. We could transform the world... Prayer is powerful, but it is not the power of a sledge hammer that crushes with one blow. It is the power of sunrays and raindrops which bless, because there are so many of them... When you fill a swamp with stones, a hundred loads may disappear under water before a stone appears on the surface, but all of them are necessary." - Frank Charles Laubach
"The evil of the Holocaust was realized through the exercise of a certain kind of power – coercive power. It was a power that sought to dominate and control. It was a power legitimated through law, buttressed by propaganda, augmented by terror, and affected through all the institutions of society." - Mary Jo Leddy
"Authentic religion has always enabled man to see that the power by which he can endure the world requires him to change the world." - Paul L. Lehman
"What did Resurrection mean but victory over death and therefore victory over sin and therefore evidence of a new power at work in the world and therefore the opening of the gates of a new life?" - Edwin Lewis
"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me." - Abraham Lincoln