This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason
Self-knowledge is that acquaintance with ourselves which shows us what we are, and what we ought to be, in order to our living comfortably and usefully here, and happily thereafter.
Acquaintance | Knowledge | Order | Self | Self-knowledge | Wisdom |
For as long as a time as we can see into the future, we shall be living between war and peace, between a war that cannot be fought and a peace that cannot be achieved. The great issues which divide the world cannot be decided by a war that could be won, and they cannot be settled by a treaty that can be negotiated... the power which used to deal with the division and conflicts of the past, namely, organized war, has become an impossible instrument to use.
Future | Past | Peace | Power | Time | War | Wisdom | World |
To be at peace with self, to find company and nourishment in self - this would be the test of the free and productive psyche.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.
There is but one bond of peace that is both permanent and enriching: the increasing knowledge of the world in which experiment occurs.
Experiment | Knowledge | Peace | Wisdom | World |
Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration of the present or assured approaching possession of a good; and we are then possessed of any good, when we have it so in our power that we can use it when we please... Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the thought of a good lost, which might have been enjoyed longer; or the sense of a present evil.
Consideration | Evil | Good | Joy | Mind | Power | Present | Sense | Sorrow | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
Japanese poetry has as its subject the human heart. It may seem to be of no practical use and just as well left uncomposed, but when one knows poetry well, one understands also without explanation the reasons governing order and disorder in the world.
Where slavery is, there liberty cannot be; and where liberty is, there slavery cannot be.
The fundamental rights, like the right to existence and life; the right to personal freedom or to conduct one’s own life as master of oneself and of one’s acts, responsible for them before God and the law of the community; the right to the pursuit of the perfection of moral and rational human life; the right to keep one’s body whole; the right to private ownership of material goods, which is a safeguard of the liberties of the individual; the right to marry according to one’s choice and to raise a family which will be assured of the liberties due it; the right of association, the respect for human dignity in each individual, whether or not he represents an economic value for society - all these rights are rooted in the vocation of the person (a spiritual and free agent) to the order of absolute values and to a destiny superior to time.
Absolute | Association | Body | Choice | Conduct | Destiny | Dignity | Existence | Family | Freedom | God | Individual | Law | Life | Life | Order | Perfection | Personal freedom | Respect | Right | Rights | Society | Time | Will | Wisdom | Society | Respect | God | Value |
Any frontal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.
As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most pat in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard.
God | Joy | Little | Love | Silence | Soul | Truth | Wills | Wisdom | God |
Visible creation in time, or nature... does not exist of itself. It is not the cause of itself, but is an ever-changing copy of something which lies behind appearances. The recipient, or mother, is three-dimensional space, which must be empty of all properties in order to receive the impress of the model. The copy is in time. The model (idea) is outside our space and time.
Cause | Model | Mother | Nature | Order | Receive | Space | Time | Wisdom |
Max Müller, fully Friedrich Max Müller
In order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries.