This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, and receives new truth as an angel for Heaven.
The more discussion the better, if passion and personality be eschewed. Discussion, even if stormy, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age.
Age | Better | Discussion | Error | Good | Passion | Personality | Truth | Wisdom |
God made sin possible just as he made all lying wonders possible, but he never made it a fact, never set anything in his plan to harmonize with it. Therefore it enters the world as a forbidden fact against everything that God has ordained.
Into what boundless life does education admit us. Every truth gained through it expands a moment of time into illimitable being - positively enlarges our existence, and endows us with qualities which time cannot weaken or destroy.
Destroy | Education | Existence | Life | Life | Qualities | Time | Truth | Wisdom |
I extend the circle of real religion very widely. Many men fear God, and love God, and have sincere desire to serve him, whose views of religious truth are very imperfect, and in some points utterly false. But may not many such persons have a state of heart acceptable before God?
Desire | Fear | God | Heart | Love | Men | Religion | Truth | Wisdom |
Understand your antagonist before you answer him... Discussion, even if story, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age.
We must make the truth as simple, as persuasive, as impelling, and as interesting as the lie often seems to be. The truth can never enslave, it can never mesmerize. The truth is always within us.
In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.
Nothing | Opposition | Truth | Wisdom |
As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered, which can seldom or never be fitted into creeds that are changeless.
Diff'ring judgments serve but to declare that Truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
Beliefs, desires, and intentions are a condition of language, but language is also a condition for them. On the other hand, being able to attribute beliefs and desires to a creature is certainly a condition of sharing a convention with that creature; while, if I am right... convention is not a condition of language. I suggest, then, that philosopher who make convention a necessary element in language have the matter backwards. The truth is rather that language is a condition for having conventions.
Convention | Language | Right | Truth | Wisdom |
All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves beside.