This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If all Earth history is compressed into one “day”, the sea is mixed two thousand times in every “minute” of it, distributing warmth and energy evenly round our water-cooled and air-conditioned planet. Every eighteen “seconds” on this collapsed time scale, the world’s rivers dump enough dissolved salts into the sea to double its concentration, but this nevertheless remains around a resolute and reasonable 3 per cent. It is vital that this should be so, because few living cells can survive a salinity which exceeds, even for just a few seconds, a value of 6 per cent. Half the living matter in the world is still found in the sea, and that fact alone seems to make the chemical regulation not only necessary, but possible.
Day | Earth | Energy | Enough | History | Regulation | Time | Wisdom | World | Value |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
When a child begins to move in the midst of the objects that surround him, he is instinctively led to appropriate to himself everything that he can lay his hands upon; he has no notion of the property of others; but as he gradually learns the value of things and begins to perceive that he may in his turn be despoiled, he becomes more circumspect, and he ends by respecting those rights in others which he wishes to have respected in himself. The principle which the child derives from the possession of his toys is taught to the man by the objects which he may call his own.
Ends | Man | Property | Rights | Wisdom | Wishes | Child | Value |
Whatever it is that we value in life – relationships, creativity, learning, aesthetic experience, food, sex, travel – the call to seize the day is the call to appreciate these things while we can and not to put them off indefinitely. Some things require work and time, and often the best choice is not to do today everything you want to do before you die. The true spirit of carpe diem is not to panic and try to do everything now, but to make sure every day counts. The wisdom of carpe diem is that time is short, this is the only life we have and we should not squander it.
Aesthetic | Choice | Creativity | Day | Experience | Learning | Life | Life | Panic | Spirit | Time | Wisdom | Work | Value |
Book of Golden Precepts, aka The Book of Golden Precepts NULL
Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.
We can listen to the voice of the Earth as she shakes and sings her song expressing her tiredness. She is calling us to attention, to be alert, to recognize that now is the time to transform selfish thought and action to compassionate caretaking. Do we want a world of peace and harmony? Are we willing to make that peace within ourselves? Will we call it forth? It is your choice. Your thought and action make a difference.
Action | Attention | Choice | Earth | Harmony | Peace | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | World | Thought |
Peter A. Bertocci, fully Peter Anthony Bertocci
The sexual act takes on qualitative significance and value which transcends the other meanings the sexual act can have, when lovers use the act purposely to become parents. For now the two lovers express their faith in love itself, in the possibilities open to their children within the social order and in this world.
If the meaning of life is not a mystery, if leading meaningful lives is within the power of all of us, then we do not need to ask the question `What’s it all about?’ in despair. We can look around us and see the many ways in which life can be meaningful. We can see the value of happiness while accepting that it is not everything, which will make it easier for us at those times when it eludes us. We can learn to appreciate the pleasure of life without becoming slaves to appetites which can never be satisfied. We can see the value of success, while not interpreting that too narrowly, so that we can appreciate the project of striving to become what we want to be as well as the more visible, public signs of success. We can see the value of seizing the day, without leading us into a desperate scramble to grasp the ungraspable moment. We can appreciate the value in helping others lead meaningful lives, too, without thinking that altruism demands everything we have. And finally, we can recognize the value of love, as perhaps the most powerful motivator to do anything at all.
Altruism | Day | Despair | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mystery | Need | Pleasure | Power | Public | Question | Success | Thinking | Will | Happiness | Learn | Value |
James O. Bennett, fully James O'
Whether or not `life has meaning’ is to an important extent determined by the quality of one’s experience… Meaningfulness, then, appears to be the more appropriate category, and rather than asking, “what is the meaning of life?” it seems more helpful to ask, “under what conditions can life be experienced as meaningful?… intrinsic value without loss of content.
Experience | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | Loss | Value |
Think that day lost whose descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done.
It is because consequentialism attaches value ultimately to states of affairs, and its concern is with what states of affairs the world contains, that it essentially involves the notion of negative responsibility; that if I am ever responsible for anything, then I must be just as much responsible for things that I allow or fail to prevent, as I am for things that I myself, in the more everyday restricted sense, bring about.
Responsibility | Sense | Wisdom | World | Value |
Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.
Action | Diversity | Good | Inquiry | Intention | Man | Right | Truth | Wisdom |
Karma is a multidimensional complex of forces beyond any simple explanation. Karma is action. An action has consequences. Our identity comes from past actions, which create memories. Those memories create desires, which give rise to new choices and new actions.
Action | Consequences | Past |