This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A people in a state of savage independence, in which every one lives for himself, exempt, unless by fits, from any external control, is practically incapable of making any progress in civilization until it has learnt to obey. The indispensable virtue, therefore, in a government which establishes itself over a people of this sort is, that it make itself obeyed.
Civilization | Control | Government | Indispensable | People | Progress | Virtue | Virtue | Government |
The meaning of life is felt through relationship... Relationship with others and with one’s own self... Parenting, teaching, serving, creating. Learning from nature, the sages, our peers, from our emerging selves in a state of becoming.
Learning | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Relationship | Self |
The state of the whole universe at any instant we believe to be the consequence of its state at the previous instant; insomuch that one who knew all the agents which exist at the present moment, their collocation in space, and all their properties, in other words, the laws of their agency, could predict the whole subsequent history of the universe, at least unless some new volition of a power capable of controlling the universe should supervene. And if any particular state of the entire universe could ever recur a second time, all subsequent states would return too, and history would, like a circulating decimal of many figures, periodically repeat itself.
History | Power | Present | Space | Time | Universe | Words |
'You put stock in winning wars, 'the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. 'The real trick lies in losing wars, and in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we've done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn't a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.'
Better | Chance | History | Knowing | Man | War | Will | World | Old | Winning |
Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties… They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak
Courage | Freedom | Liberty | Means | Men | Will | Happiness | Think |
[Man is] the unfinished animal, the radically dissatisfied and maladjusted animal… Man is the only animal who is not content to remain in the original state of nature.
The deity of one's worship is a function of one's own state of mind. But it is also a product of one's culture.
I would define man as the unfinished animal, the radically dissatisfied and maladjusted animal who comes up with a dozen different answers to each of Nature's proposals. Man is the only animal who is not content to remain in the original state of nature.
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
A positive emotional state entrains, or unites, our systems for thought, feeling, and action; shifts our concentration and energy toward support of our intellectual and creative forebrain (old mammalian and neocortex); and allows us to both learn and remember easily. In very young children, the primary caregiver’s emotional state determines the child’s state, and therefore the child’s development in general. Any kind of negative response, any form of fear or anger shifts our attention and energy from verbal-intellectual brain to our oldest survival brain. This shift shortchanges our intellect, cripples our learning and memory, and can lock our neocortex into service of our lower brain.
Action | Anger | Attention | Children | Energy | Fear | Learning | Memory | Service | Survival | Thought | Learn |
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
Forgiveness is a state of mind, a way to live in the present moment, which means to allow each instant to pass without carrying negative elements over into the next. You can knock down your little child time and again and he or she will get up and come back, trusting and open-armed, time and again. We must backtrack, recapitulate, and realize we have no choice except to say yes to the heart. There is no judgment involved; it is a simple matter of frequency and sync.
Choice | Forgiveness | Heart | Judgment | Little | Means | Mind | Present | Time | Will | Child |
Life is an island in an ocean of loneliness, an island whose rocks are hopes, whose trees are dreams, whose flowers are solitude, and whose brooks are thirst. Your life, my fellow men, is an island separated from all other islands and regions. No matter how many are the ships that leave your shores for other climes, no matter how many are the fleets that touch your coast, you remain a solitary island, suffering the pangs of loneliness and yearning for happiness. You are unknown to your fellow men and far removed from their sympathy and understanding.
Dreams | Life | Life | Loneliness | Men | Solitude | Suffering | Sympathy | Understanding |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Present suffering is not enjoyable, but life would be worth little without it... Though the aspect of suffering is hard, the prospect is hopeful, and the retrospect will start a song, if we are “the called according to his purpose,” in suffering.
Life | Life | Little | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering | Will | Worth |
If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter.
Better | Enough | Understand |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
A perverse temper, and a discontented, fretful disposition, wherever they prevail, render any state of life unhappy.
Marcel Proust, fully Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust
We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.