This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
People are afraid to think, or they don't know how. They fail to realize that, while emotions can't be surpressed, the mind can be strengthened. All over the world people are seeking peace of mind, but there can be no peace of mind without strength of mind.
Emotions | Mind | Peace | People | Strength | Wisdom | World | Afraid |
It is certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him.
Attention | Emotions | Frailties | Honor | Learning | Man | Taste | Temper | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Joshua Reynolds, fully Sir Joshua Reynolds
Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.
Emotions | Organization | Soul | Taste | Wisdom |
We all would do well to entertain the possibility of new alternative realities; since it is our definition of reality that decides for each of us what is possible, and what is not possible... Our personal 'reality' is shaped by our thoughts. They determine how we perceive our future, our accomplishments, our relationships. Our emotions are our reactions to these thoughts and perceptions, and mirror our inner consciousness. They play a crucial role in our happiness and physical well-being.
Consciousness | Emotions | Future | Play | Reality | Wisdom | Happiness |
Of all the qualities of a theologian must possess, a devotional spirit is the chief. For the soul is larger than the mind, and the religious emotions lay hold on the truths to which they are related, on many sides at once. A powerful understanding, on the other hand, seizes on single points, and however enlarged in its own sphere, is never safe from its narrowness of view.
Emotions | Mind | Qualities | Safe | Soul | Spirit | Understanding | Wisdom | Truths |
Emotion may be considered the source of power that drives us forward toward our goals in life. It is through the energy of our emotions that we fuel our thought to make them real. It is in the presence of thought that our emotion is given direction, breathing life into the image of our thoughts
Emotions | Energy | Goals | Life | Life | Power | Thought | Thought |
Martin D’Arcy, fully Fr. Martin Cyril D'Arcy
As a philosophy, Pessimism is self-destructive. The mind which conceives the good and the ideal is made in the same breath to deny their value.
Good | Mind | Pessimism | Philosophy | Self |
How well people manage their emotions determines how effectively they can use their intellectual ability.
If, as Heraclitus said, “A man’s character is his fate” – that is, if our fate is largely determined by the habitual tendencies of our repetition compulsion-personality – then the power of consciousness is that it allows us to change impulses, we have what Kierkegaard called “the possibility of possibility”: the possibility of having a free choice and the moral responsibility that comes with it. In that sense, the fear of consciousness is ultimately the fear of moral responsibility, because if we own our anxiety, shame, and guilt, and allow ourselves to have full consciousness of emotions that motivate our behavior, then we will inevitably recognize the full weight of our responsibility for that behavior.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Behavior | Change | Character | Choice | Consciousness | Emotions | Fate | Fear | Free choice | Guilt | Man | Personality | Power | Responsibility | Sense | Shame | Will | Fate |
To approach the living question with the mind alone is impossible. The intellect must be coupled with feeling in order to stir a person to authentic inquiry. Real philosophy recognizes that ideas have sensations and emotions connected with them, and that one responds to them with the whole of oneself.
Emotions | Ideas | Inquiry | Mind | Order | Philosophy | Question | Intellect |
For those facing a long haul and a series of defeats, pessimism can be an ally. Apart from anything else, as some Native Americans have also discovered, the presentation of the bleakest and starkest possible picture can have the paradoxical effect of mobilizing the emotions and intellect.
André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
We call "happiness" a certain set of circumstances that makes joy possible. But we call joy that state of mind and emotions that needs nothing to feel happy.
The man who believes firmly that the Creator of the universe loves him and cares infinitely what he dose with his life - this man is automatically freed from much of the self-distrust that afflicts less certain men. Fear, guilt, hostility, anger - these are the emotions that stifle thought and impede action. By reducing or eliminating them, religious faith makes boldness possible, and boldness makes achievement possible.
Achievement | Action | Anger | Boldness | Distrust | Emotions | Faith | Fear | Guilt | Life | Life | Man | Men | Self | Thought | Universe | Thought |
Dagobert Runes, fully Dabovert David Runes
Compassion is the only one of the human emotions the Lord permitted Himself and it has carried the divine flavor ever since.
Compassion | Emotions | Lord |
All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions come from fear.
François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
The study of art is a taste at once engrossing and unselfish, which may be indulged without effort, and yet has the power of exciting the deepest emotions - a taste able to exercise and to gratify both the nobler and softer parts of our nature.
Art | Effort | Emotions | Nature | Power | Study | Taste | Art |