This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John Holt, fully John Caldwell Holt
The anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know.
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
School is an institution for drilling children in cultural orientation. ...American classrooms, like educational institutions anywhere, express the values, preoccupations,and fears found in the culture as a whole. School has no choice; it must train the children to fit the culture as it is. ...Since education is always against some things and for others, it bears the burden of the cultural obessions. ...It thus comes about that most educational systems are imbued with anxiety and hostility, that they are against as many things as they are for. ... The function of education has never been to free the mind and the spirit of man, but to bind them...acquiescence, not originality. ...Schools are the central conserving force of the culture.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Children | Culture | Education | Force | Mind | Spirit |
Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL
The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results.
The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.
Moshé Feldenkreis, fully Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais
The psychological phenomenon of fear and anxiety is grounded in the unconditioned reflex fear of falling.
Paul Dirac, fully Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac
Well, in the first place, it leads to great anxiety as to whether it's going to be correct or not… I expect that's the dominating feeling. It gets to be rather a fever.
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bhodichitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound. It is equated, in part, with our ability to love… Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we're arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.
Ability | Anxiety | Anxiety | Birth | Heart | Mind | Sadness | Teach | Tenderness |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Birth | Heart | Sadness | Teach | Tenderness |
Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya, aka Rabi'a of Basra or Basri, Saint Rabia of Basra
My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude, And my Beloved is with me always, For His love I can find no substitute, And His love is the test for me among mortal beings. Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate He is my "mihrab", towards Him is my "qiblah" If I die of love, before completing satisfaction Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress, O Healer (of souls) the heart feeds upon its desire, The striving after union with Thee has healed my soul, O my Joy and my Life abidingly You were the source of my life and from Thee also came my ecstasy. I have separated myself from all created beings, My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Beauty | Heart | Hope | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Mortal | Beauty |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
As for myself, may the sweet Muses, as Virgil says, bear me away to their holy places where sacred streams do flow, beyond the reach of anxiety and care, and free from the obligation of performing each day some task that goes against the grain. May I no longer have anything to do with the mad racket and the hazards of the forum, or tremble as I try a fall with white-faced Fame. I do not want to be roused from sleep by the clatter of morning callers or by some breathless messenger from the palace; I do not care, in drawing my will, to give a money-pledge for its safe execution through anxiety as to what is to happen afterwards; I wish for no larger estate than I can leave to the heir of my own free choice. Some day or other the last hour will strike also for me, and my prayer is that my effigy may be set up beside my grave, not grim and scowling, but all smiles and garlands, and that no one shall seek to honor my memory either by a motion in the senate or by a petition to the Emperor.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Day | Honor | Memory | Obligation | Prayer | Sacred | Safe | Will |
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
The non-believers, however, have no life either in this world or the next. Those who really know them see that they are always racked with suffering. They endure constant pain and anxiety because things never go exactly as they want. All their days are filled with pain and anger.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
You may experience great pain when you regret your sins. You may feel deeply ashamed when contemplating God's exalted greatness. You may cringe in fear of punishment. Whatever form it takes , this suffering is caused by your very fear of God, and "The fear of God increases one's days." Your very pain and anxiety add to your days.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Experience | Fear | God | Pain | Regret | Suffering | God |