This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are no contests in Aikido. A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.
Contention | Defeat | Means | Mind |
Free of weakness ignore the sharp attacks of your enemies: Step in and act!
Weakness |
The real Art of Peace is not to sacrifice a single one of your warriors to defeat an enemy. Vanquish your foes by always keeping yourself in a safe and unassailable position; then no one will suffer any losses. The Way of a Warrior, the Art of Politics, is to stop trouble before it starts. It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually by making them realize the folly of their actions. The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony.
Art | Defeat | Folly | Peace | Sacrifice | Safe | Will | Trouble | Art |
Moshé Feldenkreis, fully Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais
Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses. Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don’t divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation.
As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.
Moshé Feldenkreis, fully Moshé Pinchas Feldenkrais
Most people spend their whole lives using their strengths to cover up and hide their weaknesses said Feldenkrais. But if you surrender to your weakness theirein lies your pathway to genius.
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Children of any religion who have true faith must realize that God is the only One who knows all of everything. Therefore, only God can judge whether a person has faith, certitude, and determination or not and whether a person lives with that purity that can be called Islam or not. No one else can give that judgment. Do not wave your religion like a banner and go out to capture others. Only one kind of war is permissible in the eyes of God: the war you wage within yourself to defeat the demonic forces of lust, anger, jealousy, desire for revenge, and other evil feelings and attributes that may exist within your heart. God has sent each of the prophets as witnesses to the grace of God and as supports to help us in this inner war. This is the reason for the Qur'an. It is to help the true Muslim fight this inner battle and win victory over his own base desires that God sent the Messenger with the Qur'an.
Battle | Defeat | Desire | Determination | Evil | Faith | Feelings | God | Grace | Purity | Reason | Religion | War | God |
Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
Defeat |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude.
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
The presence of evil in his life provokes him into either overcoming it or yielding to it. If the first, it has led him to work for his own improvement; if the second it has led him to acknowledge his own weakness. Sooner or later, the unpleasant consequences of such weakness will lead him to grapple with it, and develop his power of will... Immediately and directly; it may either strengthen him or weaken him. Ultimately, it can only strengthen him.
Consequences | Evil | Life | Life | Power | Weakness | Will | Work | Yielding |
Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend
Progress was often achieved by a "criticism from the past"... After Aristotle and Ptolemy, the idea that the earth moves - that strange, ancient, and "entirely ridiculous", Pythagorean view was thrown on the rubbish heap of history, only to be revived by Copernicus and to be forged by him into a weapon for the defeat of its defeaters. The Hermetic writings played an important part in this revival, which is still not sufficiently understood, and they were studied with care by the great Newton himself. Such developments are not surprising. No idea is ever examined in all its ramifications and no view is ever given all the chances it deserves. Theories are abandoned and superseded by more fashionable accounts long before they have had an opportunity to show their virtues. Besides, ancient doctrines and "primitive" myths appear strange and nonsensical only because their scientific content is either not known, or is distorted by philologists or anthropologists unfamiliar with the simplest physical, medical or astronomical knowledge.
Care | Defeat | Earth | Important | Opportunity | Theories |
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal… If you understand life you need a reality check… If you want to achieve your objectives, you have to be prepared for a daily dose of pain or discomfort. At first, it's unpleasant and demotivating, but in time you come to realize that it’s part of the process of feeling good, and the moment arrives when, if you don't feel pain, you have a sense that the exercises aren't having the desired effect… In order to have faith in his own path, a warrior does not need to prove that someone else's path is wrong… In order for us to liberate the energy of our strength, our weakness must first have a chance to reveal itself.
Adventure | Chance | Energy | Faith | Life | Life | Need | Order | Pain | Reality | Sense | Time | Weakness | Think | Understand |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, ‘May I have permission to go into battle with you?’ Fear said, ‘Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.’ Then the young warrior said, ‘How can I defeat you?’ Fear replied, ‘My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.’ In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear.
Battle | Day | Defeat | Fear | Respect | Weapons | Respect | Teacher |
While both humanization and dehumanization are real alternatives [today], only the first is man’s vocation. This vocation is constantly negated, yet it is affirmed by that very negation. It is thwarted by injustice, exploitation, oppression and the violence of the oppressors; it is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for freedom and justice, and by their struggle to recover their lost humanity... This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity,” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity,” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. This is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source.
Deference | Dehumanization | Freedom | Generosity | Injustice | Injustice | Opportunity | Oppression | Order | Power | Strength | Struggle | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Will |
Peter Ustinov, fully Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov
That weakness in human nature which goes by the name of strength.
Human nature | Nature | Weakness |