This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A.C. Benson, fully Arthur Christopher “A.C.” Benson
What we have to do is to see as deep as we can into the truth of things, not to invent paradises of thought, sheltered gardens, from which grief and suffering shall tear us, naked and protesting; but to gaze into the heart of God, and then to follow as faithfully as we can the imperative voice that speaks within the soul.
When a man has reached a condition in which he believes that a thing must happen because he does not wish it, and that what he wishes to happen can never be, this is really the state called desperation.
Desperation | Man | Wishes |
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.
Work |
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Patriotism depends as much on mutual suffering as on mutual success; and it is by that experience of all fortunes and all feelings that a great national character is created.
Character | Experience | Feelings | Patriotism | Success | Suffering |
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Whatever is found what is called a paternal government was found a State education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience [is] to commence tyranny in the nursery.
Education | Government | Obedience | Tyranny | Government |
For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions, according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that pint which ought to be our ultimate end.
Death | Eternal | Eternity | Judgment | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | Truth |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Thought is free when it is exposed to free competition among beliefs, i.e., when all beliefs are able to state their case, and no legal or pecuniary advantages or disadvantages attach to beliefs.
Competition | Thought |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
There is a constant relation between the state of the universe at any instant and the rate of change in the rate at which any part of the universe is changing at that instant, and this relation is man-one, i.e., such that the rate of change in the rate of change is determinate when the state of the universe I given. If the ‘law of causality’ is to be something actually discoverable in the practice of science, the above proposition has a better right to the name than any ‘law of causality’ to be found in the books of philosophers.
Better | Books | Change | Law | Man | Practice | Right | Science | Universe |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The State is a collection of officials… drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and of the power of the bureaucrats.
Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
Minds, like bodies will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.
Good temper is the most contented, the most comfortable state of the soul; the greatest happiness both for those who possess it, and for those who feel its influence. With "gentleness" in his own character, "comfort" in his house, and "good temper" in his wife, the earthly felicity of man is complete... Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim.
Character | Comfort | Gentleness | Good | Influence | Man | Soul | Temper | Wife | Happiness |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Cultivate unity. You do your hearing, not with your ears, but with your mind; not with your mind, but with your very soul. But let the hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only Tao can abide. And the negative state is the fasting of the heart.