This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte
What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it. A person indolent by nature or dulled and distorted by mental servitude, learned luxury, and vanity will never raise himself to the level of idealism.
Character | Idealism | Luxury | Man | Nature | Philosophy | Servitude | Soul | System | Will |
Pride is a deeply rooted ailment of the soul. The penalty is misery; the remedy lies in the sincere, life-long cultivation of humility, which means self-evaluation and a proper perspective toward past, present and future.
Character | Cultivation | Future | Humility | Life | Life | Means | Past | Present | Pride | Self | Soul |
Worldly ambition is founded on pride or envy, but emulation, or laudable ambition, is actually founded in humility; for it evidently implies that we have a low opinion of our present attainments, and think it necessary to be advanced.
Ambition | Character | Envy | Humility | Opinion | Present | Pride | Ambition | Think |
A happy life is made up of little things in which smiles and small favors are given habitually. A gift sent, a letter written, a call made, a recommendation given, transportation provided, a cake made, a book lent, a check sent - things which are done without hesitation. Kindness isn't sacrifice so much as it is being considerate for the feelings of others, sharing happiness, the unselfish thought, the spontaneous and friendly act, forgetfulness of our own present interests.
Character | Feelings | Forgetfulness | Happy | Kindness | Life | Life | Little | Present | Sacrifice | Thought |
Self-knowledge leading to self-hatred and humility, is the condition of the love and knowledge of God. Spiritual exercises that make use of distractions have this great merit, that they increase self-knowledge. Every soul that approaches God must be aware of who and what it is. To practice a form of mental or vocal prayer that is, so to speak, above one’s moral station is to act a lie: and the consequences of such lying are wrong notions about God, idolatrous worship of private and unrealistic phantasies and (for lack of the humility of self-knowledge) spiritual pride.
Character | Consequences | God | Humility | Knowledge | Love | Lying | Merit | Practice | Prayer | Pride | Self | Self-hatred | Self-knowledge | Soul | Worship | Wrong | God |
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are certain moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.
Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL
Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face.
Character | Misfortune | Soul |
The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.
Character | Charity | Eternity | Grace | Present | Soul | Time |
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
We cannot presume to know what’s best for another soul. We have no way of knowing where that soul has been, what road it has traveled, what its secrets are, and what lessons it needs in order to attain spiritual awareness.
Custom is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared I the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.
Action | Character | Custom | Ends | Events | Experience | Future | Influence | Life | Life | Means | Memory | Past | Present | Speculation |
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
The soul is where you do the work, where you make the changes.
The only thing of value in a man is the soul. That is why it is the soul that is given everlasting life, either in the Land of the Sky or in the Underworld. The soul is man’s greatest power; it is the soul that makes us human, but how it does so we do not know. Our flesh and blood, our body, is nothing but an envelope about our vital power.
Body | Character | Land | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Power | Soul | Value |
It is the still voice that the soul heeds; not the deafening blasts of doom.
Nature... is frugal in her operations and will not be at the expense of a particular instinct to give us that knowledge which experience and habit will soon produce. Reproduced sights and contacts tied together with the present sensation in the unity of a thing with a name, these are complex objective stuff out of which my actually perceived table is made. Infants must go through a long education of the eye and ear before they can perceive the realities which adults perceive. Every perception is an acquired perception.
Character | Education | Experience | Habit | Instinct | Knowledge | Nature | Perception | Present | Unity | Will |
Nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object... The mind has never anything present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connection with objects. The supposition of such a connection is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning.
Character | Experience | Mind | Nothing | Object | Perception | Present |