This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality, to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations - the relation between the creature and his Creator.
Contemplation | Death | Individuality | Wisdom | Contemplation |
H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.
It is not that life has not meaning, but that it has no predetermined meaning. This requires us to confront our own responsibility for creating meaning for ourselves.
Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility |
We need to find a form of life that is valuable in itself. What can make a life meaningful? Candidates for this role need to be worthwhile in themselves and not just means to future ends. They need to treat each human life as an autonomous being-for-itself, not merely a being-in-itself to serve some cause beyond it. They need to satisfy our aesthetic and ethical needs, as being both tied to the present moment and existing across time. And there is no reason why such meaning should not be found in this life and not only in a supposed life to come.
Aesthetic | Cause | Ends | Future | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Need | Present | Reason | Time |
The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, and the imagination are gifted to see; and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners, ideas as well as objects, realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections.
Heart | Ideas | Imagination | Insight | Manners | Mind | Wisdom |
The meaning of life is wrapped up in what will remain after we depart. The meaning of life is to help create a better future... The meaning of life is to be mindful of the past - to always remember - in order to make certain that history’s atrocities are not repeated again and that justice will win.
Better | Future | History | Justice | Life | Life | Meaning | Order | Past | Will | Wisdom |
We have in dreams no true perception of time - a strange property of mind ! - for if such be also its property when entered into the eternal disembodied state, time will appear to us eternity! The relations of space as well as of time are also annihilated, so that while almost an eternity is compressed into a moment, infinite space is traversed more swiftly than by real thought.
Dreams | Eternal | Eternity | Mind | Perception | Property | Space | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom |
The meaning of death is not the annihilation of the spirit, but its separation from the body, and that the resurrection and day of assembly do not mean a return to a new existence after annihilation, but the bestowal of a new form or frame to the spirit.
I believe each person should take responsibility to forge their own destiny in life and find what they feel is the true meaning for themselves. The meaning of life will ultimately be perceived differently by everyone and could actually be looked at as a sort of fingerprint of the mind because of the varying outlooks and perceptions.
Destiny | Life | Life | Meaning | Mind | Responsibility | Will |
To see altruism itself as the purpose of human life is confuse means and ends. We need to know whether good deeds are essential for life to be meaningful or whether they just comprise one possible road to fulfillment. Helping others cannot be the purpose of life, because helping others is just a means to an end… Altruism is thus not the source of life’s meaning but is something that living a meaningful life requires.
Altruism | Deeds | Ends | Fulfillment | Good | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Deeds |
A highly evolved use of intuition is being able to find meaning in symbols and synchronicities. The more we focus on finding meaning for ourselves in “chance occurrences,” the more we increase our intuitive power. Deepening our connection to our current surrounding increases our ability to follow the guidance of our inner purpose.
Ability | Chance | Focus | Guidance | Intuition | Meaning | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Guidance |
If the meaning of life is not a mystery, if leading meaningful lives is within the power of all of us, then we do not need to ask the question `What’s it all about?’ in despair. We can look around us and see the many ways in which life can be meaningful. We can see the value of happiness while accepting that it is not everything, which will make it easier for us at those times when it eludes us. We can learn to appreciate the pleasure of life without becoming slaves to appetites which can never be satisfied. We can see the value of success, while not interpreting that too narrowly, so that we can appreciate the project of striving to become what we want to be as well as the more visible, public signs of success. We can see the value of seizing the day, without leading us into a desperate scramble to grasp the ungraspable moment. We can appreciate the value in helping others lead meaningful lives, too, without thinking that altruism demands everything we have. And finally, we can recognize the value of love, as perhaps the most powerful motivator to do anything at all.
Altruism | Day | Despair | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mystery | Need | Pleasure | Power | Public | Question | Success | Thinking | Will | Happiness | Learn | Value |
James O. Bennett, fully James O'
Whether or not `life has meaning’ is to an important extent determined by the quality of one’s experience… Meaningfulness, then, appears to be the more appropriate category, and rather than asking, “what is the meaning of life?” it seems more helpful to ask, “under what conditions can life be experienced as meaningful?… intrinsic value without loss of content.
Experience | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | Loss | Value |
When we contemplate the meaning of life, we are thinking on the plane of action, of practical decisions and choices we have to make. No matter what the metaphysicians say about free will, we have to experience the world as one with choices and dilemmas and we have to resolve them as beings able to think them through and make decisions
Action | Experience | Free will | Life | Life | Meaning | Thinking | Will | World | Think |