This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
E. M. Forster, fully Edward Morgan Forster
Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a.k.a. Charlotte Anna (nee Perkins), Charlotte Perkins Stetson
[Suicide note] - Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or 'broken heart' is excuse for cutting off one's life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.
Character | Death | Grief | Heart | Life | Life | Misfortune | Pain | Power | Rights | Service | Suicide | Usefulness |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
What can be the aim of withholding from children, or let us say from young people, this information about the sexual life of human beings? Is it a fear of arousing interest in such matters prematurely, before it spontaneously stirs in them? Is it a hope of retarding by concealment of this kind the development of the sexual instinct in general, until such time as it can find its way into the only channels open to it in the civilized social order? Is it supposed that children would show no interest or understanding for the facts and riddles of sexual life if they were not prompted to do so by outside influence? Is it regarded as possible that the knowledge withheld from them will not reach them in other ways? Or is it genuinely and seriously intended that later on they should consider everything connected with sex as something despicable and abhorrent from which their parents and teachers wish to keep them apart as long as possible? I am really at a loss so say which of these can be the motive for the customary concealment from children of everything connected with sex. I only know that these arguments are one and all equally foolish, and that I find it difficult to pay them the compliment of serious refutation.
Character | Children | Concealment | Fear | Hope | Influence | Instinct | Knowledge | Life | Life | Order | Parents | People | Time | Understanding | Will | Loss |
Samuel Griswold Goodrich, better known by pseudonymn Peter Parley
Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. It springs from a consciousness of virtue and renders a man, in the pursuit or defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition in contempt.
Character | Consciousness | Contempt | Courage | Defense | Fear | Man | Opposition | Right | Virtue | Virtue |
Creativity always dies a quick death in rooms that house conference tables.
Character | Creativity | Death |
We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavor to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice.
In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.
Beginning | Character | Ends | Evil | Fanaticism | Fear | Religion | Wickedness |
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
If you live in a fearful state, there will always be something of which to be afraid... The final overcoming of fear is in the realization that the presence of god is a great safety net under you at all times. There is a part of you which can never be afraid.
Faith is a pre-condition of all systematic knowing, all purposive doing and all decent living. Societies are held together, not primarily by the fear of the many for the coercive power of the few, but by a widespread faith in the other fellow’s decency.
I found death to be a simple shift in consciousness. It was painless, instantaneous and nothing to be feared. In fact, it felt more natural not to breath than to breathe. It was wonderful not to 'wear' a body. I had complete mobility, perfect memory and knowledge. I was free! I found no fear in dying. The fear came for me when I realized that I was still alive, and I didn't 'stay dead'.You don't lose your cravings or addictions in dying, but I found that you do lose your ability to satisfy them. The opportunities that existed before are no more. Whatever are your attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, ideas, feelings, expectations or apprehensions...that's what you'll wear and that's what you'll be. They become your body and your world. No more games. No more secrets. No more cover-up. You become what you really are! We are in a condition of our own creation. When we die we reap our own harvest.
Ability | Body | Character | Consciousness | Death | Fear | Feelings | Ideas | Knowledge | Memory | Nothing | World |