This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all are agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better-looking than he had imagined.
God is outside of none, present unperceived to all; we break away from Him, or rather from ourselves; what we turn from we cannot reach; astray ourselves, we cannot go in search of another; a child distraught will not recognize its father; to find ourselves is to know our source.
Novalis, pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg NULL
It is not merely the multiplicity of tints, the gladness of tone, or the balminess of the air which delight in the spring; it is the still consecrated spirit of hope, the prophecy of happy days yet to come; the endless variety of nature, with presentiments of eternal flowers which never shall fade and sympathy with the blessedness of the ever-developing world.
Blessedness | Eternal | Happy | Hope | Nature | Prophecy | Spirit | Sympathy | Wisdom | World |
Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
Endless is the search for truth.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
Just as life is defined as biological change and death as its lack, so meaning in life is characterized by the application of stable patterns to changing circumstances and the replacing of old patterns of understanding with new and exploratory ones. Meaning is found in the losing of it, the searching after it, and in the finding of it again. The meaning in your life is in flux and is to be found in the flux (the flow) of meaning, which is therefore itself a source of meaning in your life. All this does require, however, the developing of a tolerance for ambiguity, of a willingness to accept the inevitability of change and the precariousness of your present vision, and of an openness to the unending richness of your experience of the world in its manifold variety and diversity.
Ambiguity | Change | Circumstances | Death | Diversity | Experience | Life | Life | Meaning | Openness | Present | Understanding | Vision | World | Old |
Man is ever a contingent being in search of necessity.
The search for final truth rests with each individual personality and rendering the partial interpretations of our experience fundamentally consistent with one another. It is this fact that justifies the use of the word `God’ to designate the all embracing personality in whose existence ultimate reality exists.
Existence | Experience | God | Individual | Personality | Reality | Search | Truth |
What is important and of greatest significance is that an ideal of final truth is always before use and that the search for truth is acknowledged by all men as a duty not imposed from outside but born from within. The search for final truth rests with each individual personality and rendering the partial interpretations of our experience fundamentally consistent with one another. It is this fact that justifies the use of the word `God’ to designate the all embracing personality in whose existence ultimate reality exists.
Duty | Existence | Experience | God | Important | Individual | Men | Personality | Reality | Search | Truth |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Truth is like a vast tree which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of Truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there in the shape of opening for an ever greater variety of service.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel people to unfold their powers.
Meaning | People | Search | Uncertainty |
The search for wholeness… The word integrity comes from the Latin integritas, which means to be whole or complete. In Hebrew the word for wholeness and completeness is shalom, which also means peace between people and peace within oneself. In Arabic, the word is salaam.
The search for inner peace and the quest for peace in the world go hand in hand. The overall impact of the Ten Commandments is to show us how being a good person in the world and finding a sense of spiritual wholeness deep within are intimately connected to each other.
Are you open to the full interrogation of life? Or are you close to the search because you believe what you’ve always believed without question? Have you pondered the logic of your experiences and dared to follow the direction of their limits and promptings?