This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
Logic | Peace | Principles | Wisdom | Intellect |
Blosius, fully Abbot Louis de Blois and Franciscus Ludovicus Blosius NULL
For when, though love, the soul goes beyond all work of the intellect and all images of the mind, and is rapt above itself (a favor only God can bestow), utterly leaving itself, it flows into God: then is God its peace and fullness... It sinks down into the abyss of divine love, where, dead to itself, it lives in God.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
If we persist in encouraging and educating only the intellect in our schools, we will inevitably create an instrumental conception of life, in which all human activity will be valued as a means to an end, never for itself.
W. Macneile Dixon, fully William Macneile Dixon
The astonishing thing about the human being is not so much his intellect and bodily structure, profoundly mysterious as they are. The astonishing and least comprehensible thing about him is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals.
To approach the living question with the mind alone is impossible. The intellect must be coupled with feeling in order to stir a person to authentic inquiry. Real philosophy recognizes that ideas have sensations and emotions connected with them, and that one responds to them with the whole of oneself.
Emotions | Ideas | Inquiry | Mind | Order | Philosophy | Question | Intellect |
Know thou the soul as riding in a chariot, the body as the chariot. Know thou the intellect as the chariot-driver, and the mind as the reins. The senses, they say, are the horses; the objects of sense, what they range over, the self combined with senses and mind, wise men call `the enjoyer.’ He who has not understanding, whose mind is not constantly held firm – his senses are uncontrolled, like the vicious horses of a chariot-driver.
Body | Men | Mind | Self | Sense | Soul | Understanding | Wise | Intellect |
Above the senses is the mind. Above the mind is the intellect. Above the intellect is the ego. Above the ego is the unmanifested seed, the Primal Cause. And verily beyond the unmanifested seed is the self, the unconditioned Knowing whom one attains to freedom and achieves immortality.
Cause | Ego | Freedom | Immortality | Knowing | Mind | Self | Intellect |
Take care not to make the intellect our god; it has powerful muscles but no personality.
Care | God | Personality | Intellect |
Human beings seek a prior meaning in everything as a defense against doubts about the importance of anything, including man's existence ... To affirm that there is a supreme meaning of life is to give the intellect an opportunity to escape the disquieting conclusion that nothing people do can possibly have more than slight importance.
Defense | Existence | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Nothing | Opportunity | People | Intellect |
Alexis de Tocqueville, Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
One of the most ordinary weakness of the human intellect is to seek reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
Logic | Peace | Principles | Weakness | Intellect |