This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
The world is not an illusion; it is not nothingness, for it is willed by God and therefore is real… The reality of the world is not in itself but it is in the thought and being of the Creator. It is what God thought and willed it to be before it was.
God | Illusion | Reality | Thought | World | God | Thought |
Human life has positive meaning only if (1) it contains some purposes the person who live it takes to be nontrivial and achievable; (2) these purposes have positive value; and (3) it also contains actions that are directed toward achieving purposes and are performed with zest.
The world of reality has its bounds. The world of imagination is boundless.
Imagination | Reality | World |
Maggie Ross, pen name for Martha Reeves
The pain that gives us self-knowledge, willingly sought and moved through, is at the heart of repentance of any kind. Pain is… the open space - one meaning of the ancient Hebrew word for salvation - the point of intersection and integration of our selves with one another and all the Creation.
Heart | Integration | Knowledge | Meaning | Pain | Repentance | Salvation | Self | Self-knowledge | Space |
Life’s meaning is contingent on how we live. As life takes one direction rather than another, so does its meaning.
A disciple once complained, “You tell us stories, but you never reveal their meaning to us.” Said the master, “How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and chewed it up before giving it to you?” No one can find your meaning for you. Not even the master.
The existentialist insight, in part, is that meaning is something we give to life. We do not find meaning so much as throw ourselves at it. The Zen insight, in part, is that worrying about meaning may itself make life less meaningful than it might have been. Part of the virtue of the Zen attitude lies in learning to not need to be busy: learning there is joy and meaning and peace in simply being mindful, not needing to change or be changed. Let the moment mean what it will.
Change | Insight | Joy | Learning | Life | Life | Meaning | Need | Peace | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Zen |
E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher
What I wish to emphasize is the duality of the human requirement when it comes to the question of size: there is no single answer. For his different purposes man needs different structures, both small ones and large ones, some exclusive and some comprehensive… For constructive work, the principal task is always the restoration of some kind of balance. Today, we suffer from an almost universal idolatry of giantism. It is therefore necessary to insist on the virtues of smallness – where this applies. (If there were a prevailing idolatry of smallness, irrespective of subject or purpose, one would have to try and exercise influence in the opposite direction.)
Balance | Duality | Influence | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Size | Work |
Karl Wilheim Friedrich Schlegel, later Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
It is precisely the conflict between the good or divine principle, on the one hand, and the evil or adverse principle on the other, which constitutes the meaning of human life and human history, from the beginning to the end of time.
Beginning | Evil | Good | History | Life | Life | Meaning | Time |
The most elementary ethical principle, when understood by the heart, means that out of reverence for the unfathomable, infinite, and living Reality we call God, we must never consider ourselves strangers toward any human being. Rather, we must bind ourselves to the task of sharing his experiences and try being of help to him.
Meaning in life is determined by how we choose to experience the world, not by how the world experiences us. We are all born with the freedom to put whatever meaning we’d like into our lives.
The narrative structure of story impresses understandable patterns of meaning on experience, no matter how discontinuous an event is with our core beliefs and current view of things. This shows up most vividly in the midst of personal crises.
Experience | Meaning | Story |
This is the meaning of life - continuously to add something we haven’t know so far. That, anyway, is the meaning of all existing things. Existence is built upon the idea of the creative - that there is always something unknown to be discovered, which causes and motivates new perception, new studies, the energy to go on.