This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"I consider that this shift [to an emphasis on our “capacity to identify with the larger collective of all beings” ] is essential to our survival at this point in history precisely because it can serve in lieu of morality and because moralising is ineffective. Sermons seldom hinder us from pursuing our self-interest, so we need to be a little more enlightened about what our self-interest is. It would not occur to me, for example, to exhort you to refrain from cutting off your leg. That wouldn’t occur to me or to you, because your leg is part of you. Well, so are the trees in the Amazon Basin; they are our external lungs. We are just beginning to wake up to that. We are gradually discovering that we are our world." - Joanna Macy, fully Joanna Rogers Macy
"Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? " - Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
"There is no rest for the humble except in despising the great, whose only thought of the people is inspired by self-interest or sadism." - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches
"At one time I thought a strong argument could be made for compulsory schooling because of the harm which the failure to school your child does to other people.…But the work which Ed West and others have done on the actual development of schools makes it abundantly clear that in the absence of compulsory schooling there would nonetheless be a very high degree of literacy—that self-interest would be sufficient to yield a degree of schooling which would satisfy the social need for a literate society. Consequently, I am no longer in favor of compulsory schooling." - Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
"Problems of any nature only get solved when people are willing to tell the truth about their systemic nature. There are times when the truth is temporarily shielded from our view, but too often we would rather not deal the real issues because of social, political or economic self-interest or pressure. Telling the truth and being open to the real truth requires courage, and sometimes risk, but is always empowering and more often than not, very rewarding. Eventually the truth will not be denied, so why not start dealing with the systemic truths of your business today? Have courage and believe in yourself!" - Peter Senge, fully Peter Michael Senge
"Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellspring of initiative and creativity. " - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"Thus is it to be seen that anyone revolting against the Church's authority under the unjust pretext that it is encroaching on the State's domain, is indeed thereby imposing limits to the Truth. He who holds it [i.e., the Church's authority] to be a stranger in a nation is also declaring that Truth must also be held to be something foreign in that nation. Those who fear that it will weaken the freedom and greatness of a people, are also obliged to admit that a people can be great and free without Truth. No, such a State, such a government or whatever other name may be given to it, cannot lay claim to its citizens' affection, because in waging war against Truth, it gravely strikes at that which is found to be most sacred in man. Such a government will be able to sustain itself through material and brute force; it will make itself feared through the sword; people will, through hypocrisy, self-interest or sheer slavishness: the people will obey because religion preaches and ennobles submission to the human powers that be, as long as they do not require that which is contrary to the holy laws of God. But if the fulfillment of these duties towards human authorities, in that which is compatible with the people's duty to God, renders their obedience more meritorious, it will not, for all that, become more tender, nor more joyful nor more spontaneous: never will it even deserve to be considered as venerable nor affectionate." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL
"We mourn over the sin which brought about that downfall (the Temple destruction -- author), we take to heart the harshness which we have encountered in our years of wandering as the chastisement of a father, imposed on us for our improvement, and we mourn the lack of observance of the Torah which that ruin has brought about. Not in order to shine as a nation among nations do we raise our prayers and hopes for a reunion in our land, but in order to find a soil for the better fulfillment of our spiritual vocation in that reunion and in that land which was promised, and given, and again promised for our observance of the Torah. But this very vocation obliges us, until G-d shall call us back to the Holy Land, to live and to work as patriots wherever He has placed us, to collect all the physical, material and spiritual forces and all that is noble in Israel to further the weal of the nations which have given us shelter. It obliges us, further, to allow our longing for the far-off land to express itself only in mourning, in wishing and hoping; and only through the honest fulfillment of all Jewish duties to await the realization of this hope. But it forbids us to strive for the reunion or possession of the land by any but spiritual means." - Samson Raphael Hirsch
"The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey." - Walter Lippmann
"There are those who are so scrupulously afraid of doing wrong that they seldom venture to do anything." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
"The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"The pleasure of love is in the loving; and there is more joy in the passion one feels than in that which one inspires." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends." - Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
"If the people would but analyze the human equation of a prison they might better account for the crimes that are visited upon them in cities, towns, and hamlets, oft times by men who graduated with an education and equipment for just that sort of retributive service from some penal institution." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs