This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What, then, is the nature of the reality that we believe in evidentially? Transiency is the main reality. We appear to live in an ever-perishing world. It seems that our life is confined to a single instant at a time. We see everything passing away - for ever, as we say, without having the slightest idea of what we mean by this expression. Where does everything go - for ever? Where do our lives go? Certainly they are not contained in a space of three dimensions. We witness, apparently, events, people, and things disappearing into total extinction, into an absolute nothingness, as the result of passing-time. This is the reality of appearances as registered by our senses. There goes with it a particular understanding of life.
Absolute | Events | Life | Life | Nature | People | Reality | Space | Time | Understanding | Wisdom | Witness | World |
I feel that just understanding near-death experiences will be our first step at healing the great division between science and religion that started with Isaac Newton almost three hundred years ago. Educating physicians, nurses, and ourselves about what people experience in those final hours will shatter our prejudices about the ways we think about medicine and life.
Death | Experience | Life | Life | People | Religion | Science | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | Think |
Just as education without humanity is the most dangerous thing in the world, so education in love, human understanding and cooperation is the greatest hope of the world.
Cooperation | Education | Hope | Humanity | Love | Understanding | Wisdom | World |
Reading affords the opportunity to everyone - the poor, the rich, the humble, the great - to spend as many hours as he wishes in the company of the noblest men and women that the world has ever known.
William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa
No man’s spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience’ sake, will prove a cordial for weak and low spirits, far beyond what either indulgence or diversion or company can do for them.
Action | Conscience | Desire | Diversion | Duty | Good | Indulgence | Man | Sacrifice | Temptation | Will | Wisdom | Temptation |
The more and more you listen, the more and more you hear; the more and more you hear, the deeper and deeper your understanding becomes.
Understanding | Wisdom |
Women have the understanding of the heart, which is better than that of the head.
Better | Heart | Understanding | Wisdom |
Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understanding of her language.
Language | Man | Nature | Understanding | Wisdom |
Court the society of a superior, and make much of the opportunity; for in the company of an equal thy good fortune must decline.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
It is the same with understanding as with eyes; to a certain size and make, just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond brings darkness and confusion.
Darkness | Light | Size | Understanding | Wisdom |
It is not enough for parents to understand children. they must accord children the privilege of understanding them.
Children | Enough | Parents | Understanding | Wisdom | Privilege | Understand |
Heymann Steinthal. alternatively Hermann Steinthal
The old prayers... in which our fathers poured out their hearts to God, awaken our personal sentiments and blend them with the religious sentiments of the ages.
We should accustom the mind to keep the best company by introducing it only to the best books.
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause; a motion, without a mover; a circle, without a centre; a time, without an eternity; a second, without a first: these are things so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must be a beast in understanding who can believe in them. The thing formed, says that nothing formed it; and that which is made, is, while that which made it is not! This folly is infinite!
Art | Cause | Chance | Earth | Eternity | Folly | Heaven | Nothing | Philosophy | Reason | Skill | Time | Understanding | Wisdom | Art | Think |