This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.
The dispute between the theory of a predestined future and the theory of a free future is an endless dispute. This is so because both theories are too literal, too rigid, too material, and the one excludes the other... The opposites are both equally wrong because the truth lies in the unification of these two opposite understandings into one whole. At any given moment all the future of the world is predestined and existing - provided no new factor comes in. And a new factor can only come in from the side of consciousness and the will resulting from it.
Consciousness | Dispute | Future | Theories | Truth | Will | World | Wrong |
I have a theory of power: That if it's going to be responsible, it has to have something to lose.
Power |
The astonishment of life is the absence of any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life.
Absence | Appearance | Life | Life | Practice | Reconciliation |
Arthur Eddington, fully Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
It has hitherto seemed that physics comes down heavily on the side of predestination. The quantum theory has entirely removed this bias. Whatever view we may take of free will on philosophical grounds we cannot appeal to physics against it.
Free will | Predestination | Will |
Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.
Absolute | Doctrine | Knowledge | Life | Life | Means | Order | Practice | Present | Reality | Receive | Thought | Truth | World | Learn | Think | Thought |
He who is in a position to intercede on behalf of his fellow, but does not, is considered a sinner.
Position |
For the educator, complacent in his ivory tower, to scorn affiliation with a cause he considers to be noble, to refuse to attempt to win disciples from the ranks of students he is in a position to influence, is unmistakably to forswear a democratic responsibility, and to earn for himself the contemptible title of dilettante and solipsist.
Cause | Influence | Position | Responsibility | Title |
The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend.
Men |
The only position from which you can never fall is the awakened state.
Position |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Akon’s spaceship resonates at harmonics tuned to light between the two cycles of matter and anti-matter manifesting in alternate pulses, moving instantaneously therefore, through the double cycles, within the electromagnetic wave-length of the Universe, and using the fabric of space itself by altering the space-time geometric matrix. The spaceship herself acts as a protection for the people within her, as she changes position through the unified field.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
It has never been my position that society only deforms or manifests that which is already there. If we make the distinction between human necessities in general and human desires in particular then indeed, society creates particular desires which, however, follow the general laws of the necessities rooted in human nature.
Distinction | Position | Society | Society |