This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If it is the great delusion of moralists to suppose that all previous ages were less sinful than their own, then it is the great delusion of intellectuals to supposed that all previous ages were less sick.
John T. McNicholas, fully John Timothy McNicholas
The God-given rights of parents are not understood or are ignored by our secularist educators and by many school administrators who, in the delusion of sovereignty, act as though they, not the parents, have complete control of the education of the child.
Character | Control | Delusion | Education | God | Parents | Rights |
One cannot properly appreciate the human realities so long as one labors under the adolescent delusion that people get the fates they deserve.
Haku'un Ryoko Yasutani, aka Yasutani Roshi
The fundamental delusion of humanity is to supposed that I am here and you are out there.
A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self [ego]. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
Beauty | Compassion | Consciousness | Delusion | Ego | Experience | Feelings | Humanity | Nature | Prison | Rest | Self | Sense | Space | Thinking | Time | Universe | Value |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
P. D. Premasiri, fully Pahalawattage Don Premasiri
Fanaticism and intolerance often result from the delusion that, "this alone is the truth and everything else is false," causing people to commit atrocities in the name of "truth."
Delusion | Fanaticism | Intolerance | People | Truth |
One-half of life is admitted by us to be passed in sleep, in which, however, it may appear otherwise, we have no perception of truth, and all our feelings are delusions; who knows but the other half of life, in which we think we are awake, is a sleep also, but in some respects different from the other, and from which we wake when we, as we call it sleep. As a man dreams often that he is dreaming, crowding one dreamy delusion on another.
Delusion | Dreams | Feelings | Life | Life | Man | Perception | Truth | Think |
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
Wisdom is prevented by ignorance, and delusion is the result.
Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi
Both delusion and enlightenment are only concepts. There is no delusion and no enlightenment. One who realizes this completely, with the whole being, is called “enlightened.”