This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man. Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Polonius at I, iii)
It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
Absolute | Action | Feelings | Impression | Judgment | Man | Reason | Sacred | Sense | Understanding | Intellect |
William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
I would employ the word noetic to express all those cognitions which originate in the mind itself.
Meaning | Understanding | Intellect |
A rule that relates even to the smallest part of our life is of great benefit to us, merely as it is a rule.
God | Providence | Revelation | God |
We can see that the mind is at every stage a theatre of simultaneous possibilities. Consciousness consists in the comparison of these with each other, the selection of some, and the suppression of others, of the rest, by the reinforcing and inhibiting agency of attention. The highest and most celebrated mental products are filtered from the data chosen by the faculty below that - which mass was in turn sifted from a still larger amount of simpler material, and so on.
When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
The room was much as he had left it, festeringly untidy, though the effect was muted a little by a thick layer of dust. Half-read books and magazines nestled among piles of half-used towels. Half-pairs of socks reclined in half-drunk cups of coffee. What once had been a half-eaten sandwich had now half-turned into something that Arthur didn’t entirely want to know about. Bung a fork of lightning through this lot, he thought to himself, and you’d start the evolution of life off all over again.
The intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception.
My Lord Anson, at the Admiralty, sends word to Chatham, then confined to his chamber by one of his most violent attacks of the gout, that it is impossible for him to fit out a naval expedition within the period to which he is limited. "Impossible!" cried Chatham, glaring at the messenger; "who talks to me of impossibilities?" Then starting to his feet, and forcing out great drops of agony on his brow with the excruciating torment of the effort, he exclaimed, "Tell Lord Anson that he serves under a minister who treads on impossibilities!"
A large portion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be. - They create an ideal character the perfections of which compensate in some degree for imperfections of their own.
Immortality | Instinct | Life | Life | Words |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Among these, the five organs of cognition are concerned with specific and non-specific objects. Speech is concerned with sound; the rest are concerned with all five objects.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Five are the varieties of obstruction; the varieties of infirmity due to organic defect are twenty-eight; complacency is nine-fold and attainment is eight-fold.
Complacency | Intellect |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
This is an intellectual creation, termed obstruction, infirmity, complacency and attainment. Through the disparity in influence of the gunas, its varieties are fifty.
Individual | Self | Intellect |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Since it is the intellect (buddhi) which accomplishes the fruition of all that is to be enjoyed by the Self (purusha), it is also that which discerns the subtle difference between Nature (pradhana) and the Self (purusha).
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
From the shock of triple misery comes the desire to know the means of prevention; nor is the enquiry superfluous because of visible remedies, for these cannot secure certain and permanent relief.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Primordial matter (mulaprakriti) is the root, not a product; the seven principles beginning with the great Intellect (mahat) are both products and productive; the sixteen are mere products; the Self (purusha) is neither a product nor productive.