This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
E. W. Howe, fully Edgar Watson Howe
Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.
Dmitri Shostakovich, fully Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich
There can be no music without ideology. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes. Only Beethoven was a forerunner of the revolutionary movement. If you read his letters, you will see how often he wrote to his friends that he wished to give new ideas to the public and rouse it to revolt against its masters.
Let us examine more closely the significance of this vague word, reality. It may have several meanings, according to the different points of view which one takes. We may regard it as embodied in the physical world, the world of land and sea, of sky and trees, of sunshine and of storm. The real therefore will be to us that which we can touch and see, smell and taste, as one will say, "I know that is real for I can see it with my eyes." Seeing is believing, and the testimony of the senses is the superior court of appeal in controverted questions. But the world of reality may be regarded from quite a different point of view, as the world of consciousness, the mind of man, the experiences of the inner self, the Ego. Here is a world of phenomena interrelated and reciprocally dependent. It is a realm of ideas, of memory images, of fancy, of will, and of desire. The verities in this world cannot be seen, or measured, or weighed, and yet we do not hesitate to speak of them as realities; they are real as the love of friends is real, or the anger of a foe. The passion of a Romeo, the will of a Napoleon, the genius of a Goethe ... these are realities.
Anger | Consciousness | Desire | Ego | Genius | Ideas | Land | Love | Man | Memory | Mind | Passion | Phenomena | Reality | Regard | Self | Taste | Will | World | Friends |
To sum up, what has been our policy? We looked for and found friends all throughout the world.
Friends |
We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need.
Confidence | Need | Friends |
It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters. We become enamored with men’s theories such as the idea of preschool training outside the home for young children. Not only does this put added pressure on the budget, but it places young children in an environment away from mother’s influence. Too often the pressure for popularity, on children and teens, places an economic burden on the income of the father, so mother feels she must go to work to satisfy her children’s needs. That decision can be most shortsighted. It is mother’s influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child’s basic character. Home is the place where a child learns faith, feels love, and thereby learns from mother’s loving example to choose righteousness. How vital are mother’s influence and teaching in the home—and how apparent when neglected!
Children | Decision | Example | Influence | Mother | Theories | Training | Truth | Work | Child |
The best time to make friends is before you need them.
François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.
Melancholy | Friends |
There's an aspect of things which I find amusing: the flow back and forth between science and science fiction, which has been an important part of my life. I started out reading science fiction and then became a scientist, and that set the slant on my scientific work. I like to make connections between life and cosmology and astronomy. Science fiction raises all these interesting possibilities and has had some influence on science in the last 25 years – not only in the area of SETI, but also in other ways.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Although Freedom is, primarily, an undeveloped idea, the means it uses are external and phenomenal; presenting themselves in History to our sensuous vision. The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and interests are the sole springs of action — the efficient agents in this scene of activity. Among these may, perhaps, be found aims of a liberal or universal kind — benevolence it may be, or noble patriotism; but such virtues and general views are but insignificant as compared with the World and its doings. We may perhaps see the Ideal of Reason actualized in those who adopt such aims, and within the sphere of their influence; but they bear only a trifling proportion to the mass of the human race; and the extent of that influence is limited accordingly. Passions, private aims, and the satisfaction of selfish desires, are on the other hand, most effective springs of action. Their power lies in the fact that they respect none of the limitations which justice and morality would impose on them; and that these natural impulses have a more direct influence over man than the artificial and tedious discipline that tends to order and self-restraint, law and morality. When we look at this display of passions, and the consequences of their violence; the Unreason which is associated not ,only with them, but even (rather we might say especially) with good designs and righteous aims; when we see the evil, the vice, the ruin that has befallen the most flourishing kingdoms which the mind of man ever created, we can scarce avoid being filled with sorrow at this universal taint of corruption: and, since this decay is not the work of mere Nature, but of the Human Will — a moral embitterment — a revolt of the Good Spirit (if it have a place within us) may well be the result of our reflections.
Action | Aims | Belief | Benevolence | Consequences | Discipline | Display | Freedom | Good | History | Influence | Justice | Law | Man | Means | Men | Mind | Morality | Order | Power | Reason | Respect | Sorrow | Spirit | Will | Work | World | Respect |
George Gurdjieff, fully George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
If you want to lose your faith, make friends with a priest.
Friends |
As a confirmed individualist I certainly do not wish to underrate the influence of the individual, for the masses do not lead the individual; rather, in the individual is vested the capacity to lead the masses.
Capacity | Individual | Influence |
The very essence of all power to influence lies in getting the other person to participate. The mind that can do that has a powerful leverage on his human world.
Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
Ancient wisdom and quantum physicists make unlikely bedfellows: In quantum mechanics the observer determines (or even brings into being) what is observed, and so, too, for the Tiwis, who dissolve the distinction between themselves and the cosmos. In quantum physics, subatomic particles influence each other from a distance, and this tallies with the aboriginal view, in which people, animals, rocks, and trees all weave together in the same interwoven fabric.
Distinction | Influence | Wisdom |
The people who influence you are the people who believe in you.
I Ching, Book of Changes or Zhouyi NULL
Adversity breaks the inferior man's will but only bends the superior man's spirit. Outward influence is denied the great man, who accordingly uses words sparingly but retains his central position.