This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"God does not want us to do extraordinary things: he wants us to do ordinary things extraordinarily well." - Charles Gore
"There are two kinds of discontent in this world: The discontent that works, and the discontent that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants, and the second loses what it has. There's no cure for the first but success; and there's no cure at all for the second." - Gordon Graham
"Our wants serve us almost as well as our possessions." - Jean Guéhenno, given name Marcel-Jules-Marie Guéhenno
"A woman who wants a charitable heart wants a pure mind." - Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"
"One thing everybody in the world wants and needs is friendliness." - William E. Holler
"Language is a solemn thing: it grows out of life - out of its agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. Every language is a temple in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start a new religion. [Scientology]" - L. Ron Hubbard, fully Lafayette Ronald Hubbard
"I am persuaded there is no such thing after all as a perfect enjoyment of solitude; for the more delicious the solitude the more one wants a companion." - James Henry Leigh Hunt
"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
"When a man is on a low cultural level, he can satisfy his spiritual needs with outward religious observances; but as he becomes more highly developed, he wants to grasp the spirit of religion." - Nachman Kohen Krochmal, aka Ranak
"Every one is poorer in proportion as he has more wants, and counts not what he has, but wishes only for what he has not." - Manilius, fully Marcus Manilius NULL
"Often God has to shut a door in our face, so that He can subsequently open the door through which He wants us to go." - Catherine Marshall
"When we consider absolute reality, there is no end, no beginning; emptiness is the same as fulfillness, just seen from a different perspective. We say that this coffee cup is empty; but empty means filled with space, filled with possibilities, ready for anything: milk, water, tea wine. Every moment of time, every point in space, is completely empty, completely open for what wants to come. That is why it can be filled." - Stephen Mitchell
"The greatest security of the liberties of a people who do not cultivate the earth is their not knowing the use of money... The people who have no money have but few wants; and these are supplied with ease, and in an equal manner. Equality is then unavoidable; and hence it proceeds that their chiefs are not despotic." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"The institutions of a country depend in great measure on the nature of its soil and situation. Many of the wants of man are awakened or supplied by these circumstances. To these wants, manners, laws, and religion must shape and accommodate themselves. The division of land, and the rights attached to it, alter with the soil; the laws relating to its produce, with its fertility. The manners of its inhabitants are in various ways modified by its position. The religion of a miner is not the same as the faith of a shepherd, nor is the character of the ploughman so war-like as that of the hunter. The observant legislator follows the direction of all these various circumstances. the knowledge of the natural advantages or defects of a country thus form an essential part of political science and history." - Justus Möser
"When a man is sure that all he wants is happiness, then most grievously he deceives himself. All men desire happiness, but they need something far different, compared to which happiness is trivial, and in the lack of which happiness turns to bitterness in the mouth. There are many names for that which men need - "the one thing needful" - but the simplest is "wholeness."" - John Middleton Murry
"If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"A world of little cares is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows nothing of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants; and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin." - Thomas Paine
"Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding." - Alexander Pope
"That man has the fewest wants who is the least anxious for wealth." - Publius Syrus
"Commerce tends to wear off prejudices which maintain destruction and animosity between nations. It softens and polishes the manners of men. It unites them by one of the strongest of all ties - the desire of supplying their mutual wants. It disposes them to peace by establishing in every state an order of citizens bound by their interest to be the guardians of public tranquillity." -
"The function of art is no longer to satisfy wants, including intellectual wants, but to serve as a stimulus to further creation. The Sistine Chapel is valuable not for the feelings it aroused in the past but for the creative acts it will instigate in the future. Art comes into being through a chain of inspiration." - Harold Rosenberg
"Language is slow; the mastery of wants doth teach it to the infant, drop by drop, as brooklets gather. Yet there is a love, simple and sure, that asks no discipline of weary years, the language of the soul, told through the eye. The stammering lip oft mars the perfect thought; but the heart's lightning hath no obstacle. Quick glances, like the thrilling wires, transfuse the telegraphic look." - Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
"“It is not safe to be alone,” nor can all which the cold-hearted, pedant stuns our ears with upon the subject ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship. A good heart wants something to be kind to; and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits suffer most under the destitution." - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
"The only limitless thing I know of is human want. Civilization itself is nothing more than the creation of wants, followed by methods of satisfying those wants." - James Shelby Thomas
"He is a great simpleton who imagines that the chief power of wealth is to supply wants. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it creates more wants than it supplies. Excessive wealth is neither glory nor happiness." - William Wirt
"Even on the path to God, All is God. You are freed from your own desires only when God frees you. This is not effected by your own exertion, but by the grace of God... Then you entirely recognize that you do not have the right to say “I” or “mine.” At this stage you behold your helplessness; desires fall away from you and you become free and calm. You desire what God desires; your own desires are gone, you are emancipated from your wants, and I have gained peace and joy in both worlds. First, action is necessary, then knowledge, in order that you may know that you know nothing and are no one. This is not easy to know. It is a thing that cannot be rightly learned by instruction, nor sewed on with needle nor tied on with thread. It is the gift of God." -
"The future is like heaven--everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now." - James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin
"What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself." - Roland Barthes, fully Roland Gérard Barthes
"Anybody who wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office." - David Salzer Broder
"Few people do know what they want. Humans may be a bundle of wishes and wants, but unless we hone these hankerings to a sharp point we will forever drift in a sea of unfulfillment." - Tom Butler-Bowdon
"Influence comes out of the work that you’ve done and the things you’ve stood for. Influence and power shouldn’t be given to just anybody who wants them." - Millicent Fenwick
"Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"He who has enough to satisfy what he wants, and nevertheless ceaselessly labors to acquire riches, either in order to obtain a higher social position, or that subsequently he may have enough to live without labor, or that his sons may become men of wealth and importance - all such are incited by a damnable avarice, sensuality and pride." - Henry of Langenstein NULL
"People are either driven to action or complacency, mission or rust. You’re either participating in the Game of Life or you’re watching it from the grandstands. Herein lies a crucial difference. A champion plays the game: a spectator observes, criticizes and never really gets to live. A champion knows what he or she wants and goes after it with carefully calculated goals and no-holds-barred action. A spectator feels that his or her life is not their own. They let others dictate their destiny. They become victims of life instead of masters of it.”" - Bruce Jenner, fully William Bruce Jenner
"Anyone who wants to be a leader must be the servant, not the boss, of those he wants to serve." - Aminu Kano
"A man can make what he wants of himself if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks along the way." - Thurgood Marshall
"The saint… wants himself to be simply a window through which God’s mercy shines on the world. And for this he strives to be holy… in order that the goodness of God may never be obscured by any selfish act of his." - Thomas Merton
"He who wants to set a good example must add a grain of foolishness to his virtue; then others can imitate and, at the same time, rise above the one being imitated – something which people love." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Morality is a means for the satisfaction of human wants. In other words, morality must justify itself at the bar of life, not life at the bar of morality." - Max Otto, fully Max Carl Otto
"If virtue be the spring of popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is the only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." - Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre
"A true leader does not seek followers, he wants to teach others how to be leaders. He does not want control, he wants the truth. He does not impose his leadership on others, nor does he take away anyone's autonomy. He inspires by love, not coercion. When it comes time to take credit, he makes himself invisible; but he is the first to arrive at the time of need, and he will never shrink away in fear. He is so passionate about your welfare that when you consult him for guidance, it is like coming face to face with yourself for the first time." - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
"Attachment is a manufacturer of illusions and whoever wants reality ought to be detached." - Simone Weil
"Life wants to secure itself against the void that is raging within. The risk of eternal void is to be met by the premium of temporal insurance… social security, old age pensions, etc. It springs no less from metaphysical despair than from material misery." - Franz Werfel, fully Franz Viktor Werfel
"He who prays must commit himself and his wants to the transforming power of God. He must seek what is genuinely the greatest good and not merely the specific things which will satisfy his present wants." - Henry Nelson Wieman