This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What then does propter hoc add to post hoc? At the factual level, nothing at all, so long as the conjunction is constant in either case... In nature one thing just happens after another. Cause and effect have their place only in our imaginative arrangements and extensions of these primary facts.
José Bergamin, fully José Bergamín Gutiérrez
A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
Belief | Doubt | Superstition |
The discovery that one cannot well give back or be given back what one has given or been given in the same place is sometimes as painful as the discovery that one is being loved on principle and not from preference.
Discovery | Preference | Wisdom | Discovery |
Marcus Bach, fully James Marcus Bach
In this world within, your world, you are the most important figure. There is a place that no one else can fill There is an influence that no one else can impart. There is a life that no one else can live quite as well as you can live it. What you do with your life within, in terms of self-realization, self-awareness, self-denial and self-expression, is the greatest challenge that can come to you.
Awareness | Challenge | Important | Influence | Life | Life | Self | Self-awareness | Self-denial | Self-realization | World |
The humble soul is a temple of God, a seat of wisdom, a throne of the word, a house of the consoler, a room of the bridegroom, the receiver of the covenant, a golden throne of grace, a tabernacle of holiness, a place of holy peace, a paradise of pleasure, a closed garden, a sealed fountain, a heavenly dwelling place.
E. B. White, fully Elwyn Brooks White
Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: it presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place which is strange, remote.
Reason | Self | Self-sufficiency | Superiority | Wisdom |
Now that man has again evolved to a point where he can make the transition into fourth dimensional consciousness, communication and contacts with extraterrestrial beings has greatly increased. The presence of extraterrestrials should be on of the most reassuring events that is taking place on Earth. Instead, it is often the cause of great fear and apprehension. Fear is born of ignorance. Were it not so, people would welcome their space brothers with open arms. All major governments have repeatedly received information to explain the ET presence. They have been ignored as the product of a deranged mind. At some point some one must come to the realization that the problem of the existence of spacecraft is not going to disappear because man officially refuses to recognize their presence.
Cause | Consciousness | Earth | Events | Existence | Fear | Ignorance | Man | Mind | People | Space | Wisdom |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
The poet is the equable man, not in him but off from him things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns, nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad, he bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less, he is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key... As he sees the farthest he has the most faith, his thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, in the dispute on God and eternity he is silent, he sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement, he sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams or dots.
Dispute | Dreams | Eternity | Faith | God | Good | Man | Men | Nothing | Object | Play | Praise | Wisdom | God |
Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe
If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
Wisdom |
Punctuated equilibria [is] the abrupt appearance of life everywhere in the fossil record… suggest evolution has taken place in major creative episodes in different times and place, but with huge periods of stability in between. New species, then, have formed in those episodes during thousands rather than millions of years. This is often called the “lucky monster” theory.
Appearance | Evolution | Life | Life |
Lives can be changed if you say the right thing at the right time at the right place with the right spirit… Words of encouragement, spoken or written, have a dramatic effect on a person…Well-intended words, even though they are correct, can damage relationships if they are not perceived as being offered with good will.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
However complex the background of a so-called meaningful life, the meaning itself is directly experienced. And the ultimate ground or place of meaning arising is the individual human being, in the specific situations of his or her life. While the sources of meaning are almost predictably outside the individual self, the experiences of meaningfulness are necessarily someone’s experiences.
Individual | Life | Life | Meaning | Self |
Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
All spiritual growth takes place by leaps and bounds, both in the individual and, as here, in the community. The crisis is to be regarded as a nexus of growth.
Growth | Individual | Crisis |
The possibilities of our future are actually determined by collective choices in the present. The evidence simply states that the choice of many people, focused in a specific manner, has a direct and measurable effect on our quality of life. Quantum physics suggests that by redirecting our focus – where we place our attention – we bring a new course of events into focus while at the same time releasing an existing course of events that may no longer serve us.
Attention | Choice | Events | Evidence | Focus | Future | Life | Life | People | Present | Time |