This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Only a goal that transcends the self and reaches beyond this world can create a true state of happiness in a person.
He who discerns all creatures in his Self, and his Self in all creatures, has no disquiet thence. What delusion, what grief can be with him?
Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.
Angus Wilson, fully Sir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson
All the seven deadly sins are self destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least, lust and gluttony, avarice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape.
Anger | Appetite | Avarice | Effort | Envy | Fear | Gluttony | Lust | Power | Pride | Self | Sloth |
Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.
Confidence | Labor | Self |
Jacques Barzun, fully Jacques Martin Barzun
Finding oneself was a misnomer; a self is not found but made.
Self |
The secular or freethinking humanist looks into the self for guidance; response to need comes from deep human feelings of compassion, concern for others, and a desire to help. The freethinker is not motivated by a divine command to act, but rather by personal humanistic response to pain, loneliness, hunger, and homelessness. Benevolent actions are not accompanied by a need to convert or indoctrinate, but rather flow from deep human wellsprings of empathy and a desire to improve the condition of the world.
Compassion | Desire | Empathy | Feelings | Guidance | Hunger | Loneliness | Looks | Need | Pain | Self | World |
Thou wilt never escape from thy self until thou slay it. Thy self, which is keeping thee far from God, and saying “So-and-so has treated me ill… such a one has done well by me” - all this is polytheism; nothing depends upon the creatures, all upon the Creator.
Allan Bloom, fully Allan David Bloom
The self is the modern substitute for the soul.