This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In reality a major part of pleasure in obtaining things is overcoming the obstructions that stood in our way. Once we realize this, we will be able to decrease our desire for those things that are spiritually or physically harmful just by examining them objectively and seeing that we are not missing so much. At the same time, we can gain more pleasure from spiritual accomplishments by focusing on how much we are missing in this area and can feel the sense of accomplishment in overcoming the necessary difficulties.
Accomplishment | Character | Desire | Pleasure | Reality | Sense | Time | Will |
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
Much on earth is hidden from us, but to make up for that we have been given a precious mystic sense of our living bond with the other world, with the higher heavenly world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say that we cannot apprehend the reality of things on earth.
Though a taste of pleasure may quicken the relish of life, an unrestrained indulgence leads to inevitable destruction.
Character | Indulgence | Inevitable | Life | Life | Pleasure | Taste |
Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa
It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. Its appeal is to the material part, and if allowed its way, it will in time disturb one’s spiritual balance. Therefore, children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving. If a child is inclined to be grasping, or to cling to any of his or her little possessions, legends are related about the contempt and disgrace falling upon the ungenerous and mean person... The Indians in their simplicity literally give away all that they have - to relatives, to guests of other tribes or clans, but above all to the poor and the aged, from whom they can hope for no return.
Balance | Beauty | Belief | Character | Children | Contempt | Disgrace | Generosity | Giving | Guests | Hope | Legends | Little | Love | Possessions | Simplicity | Taste | Time | Weakness | Will | Beauty | Child | Happiness | Learn |
Some people gauge their value by what they own. But in reality the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish and that no one has a right to take them away from you. How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to. Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.
Ambition | Character | Experience | Illusion | Object | People | Possessions | Reality | Right | Suffering | Will | Ambition | Value |
He who does reverence to his own sect, while disparaging the sects of others wholly from attachment to his own, with intent to enhance the glory of his own sect, in reality by such conduct inflicts the severest injury on his own sect. Concord therefore is meritorious, to wit, hearkening and hearkening willingly to the Law of Piety, as accepted by other people.
Character | Conduct | Glory | Law | People | Piety | Reality | Reverence | Wit |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
The unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us by the data of consciousness as is the external world by the reports of our sense-organs.
Character | Consciousness | Nature | Reality | Sense | World |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
The grand difficulty is to feel the reality of both worlds, so as to give each its due place in our thoughts and feelings, to keep our mind’s eye and our heart’s eye ever fixed on the land of promise, without looking away from the road along which we are to travel toward it.
Character | Difficulty | Feelings | Heart | Land | Mind | Promise | Reality |
Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos
Each is driven by the most relentless, persistent instinct man possesses: the instinct for meaning, transcendence, wholeness and truth... Reality is a continuum that extends from thinking to the denser world of physical form.
Character | Instinct | Man | Meaning | Reality | Thinking | Truth | Wholeness | World |