This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
This world is by definition the place where God hides Himself. It contains His light, i.e., the knowledge of Him, in a hidden way. And the purpose of life is to discover God; or as the prophet says: “to fill the world with the knowledge of God.”
God | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Purpose | Purpose | World | God |
Perfectionists and zealots can break but not bend; in my experience they are subject to burnout from diminishing returns or else, to borrow Santayana's definition of the fanatic, they redouble their efforts just when they have lost sight of their ends.
Ends | Experience |
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi
To begin with, it is just One Mind, all One; then we generate all the boundaries and definitions. As soon as we define ourselves in relation to another we feel more comfortable, because now we know how to be and to act. To go into a situation completely ignorant of our role is very scary. We really have to trust ourselves then. But how can we trust if we do not know who we are? So we fall back on some definition of ourselves and put our trust in that... We lose our identity when we lose our definition. We do not realize it, but that is a wonderful, extraordinary happening, because for a time we are free of our boundaries. For a moment we are nobody, but that is just too frightening. So in order to grab on to some definition, a false sense of security and comfort, what do we do right away? We get into another relationship. At least in relationship, even if it is not working for us, we know who we are.
Comfort | Mind | Order | Relationship | Right | Security | Sense | Time | Trust |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
A disciple having asked for a definition of charity, the Master said, "Love one another."
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation... A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
Good | Happy | Hell | Leisure | Occupation |
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The Absolute is Mind (Spirit) - this is the supreme definition of the Absolute. To find this definition and to grasp its meaning and burden was, we may say, the ultimate purpose of all education and all philosophy: it was the point to which turned the impulse of all religion and science; and it is this impulse that must explain the history of the world... It remains for philosophy in its own element of intelligible unity to get hold of what was thus given as a mental image, and what implicitly is the ultimate reality.
Absolute | Education | History | Impulse | Meaning | Mind | Philosophy | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Religion | Science | Spirit | Unity | World |
Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul.
Earnestness | Prayer | Soul | Speech |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
A good definition of an equitable settlement is one that will make both sides unhappy.
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
The spirit of policy and that of bureaucracy are diametrically opposed… The essence of bureaucracy is its quest for safety; its success is calculability. Profound policy thrives on perpetual creation, on a constant redefinition of goals. Good administration thrives on routine, the definition of relationships which can survive mediocrity. Policy involves an adjustment of risks; administration, an avoidance of deviation.
Administration | Deviation | Goals | Good | Mediocrity | Policy | Spirit | Success |
Things infinite and divine… are given not so much for definition as for trust; are less the objects we think of than the very tone and color of our thought, the tension of our love, the unappeasable thirst of grief and reverence.
All arts acknowledge that then only we know certainly, when we can define; for definition is that which refines the pure essence of things from the circumstance.