This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
I am free... when my existence depends upon myself. This self-contained existence of spirit is none other than self-consciousness, consciousness of one’s own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self consciousness these are merged in one; for spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially.
Appreciation | Consciousness | Energy | Existence | Nature | Self | Spirit | Appreciation |
Every intention sets energy into motion, whether you are conscious of it or not. You create in each moment.
The quantum field is seen as the fundamental physical entity; a continuous medium which is present everywhere in space. Particles are merely local condensations of the field; concentrations of energy which come and go, thereby losing their individual character and dissolving into the underlying field.
Character | Energy | Individual | Present | Space |
A kingdom is more easyly gotten than kept. For to get is the gift of fortune, but to keepe is the power of prudency and wisdome.
The human heart yearns for the beautiful in all ranks of life. The beautiful things that God makes are His gift to all alike. I know there are many of the poor who have fine feeling and a keen sense of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies because they are too hard pressed to procure it any gratification.
We need not fear the expression of ideas-we do need to fear their suppression.
Fear | Ideas | Need | Suppression |
Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness - mysterious, universal, inevitable as death.
Accident | Death | Disease | Existence | Fear | Illusion | Impulse | Inevitable | Love | Lying | Morality | Mystery | Necessity | Shame | Weakness | Happiness |
A friend’s only gift is himself, and friendship is not friendship, it is not a form of free or liberal society, if it does not terminate in an ideal possession, in an object loved for its own sake. Such objects can be ideas only, not forces, for forces are subterranean and instrumental things, having only such value as they borrow from their ulterior effects and manifestations... We are not to look now for what makes friendship useful, but for whatever may be found in friendship that may lend utility to life.
Friend | Ideas | Life | Life | Object | Society | Friendship | Value |
Let me but live from year to year, with forward face and unreluctant soul; not hurrying to, nor turning from, the goal; not mourning for the things that disappear in the dim past, nor holding back in fear from what the future veils; but with a whole and happy heart, that pays its toll to Youth and Age, and travels with cheer. So let the way wind up the hill or down o’er rough and smooth, the journey will be joy: still seeking what I sought when but a boy, new friendship, high adventure, and a crown, my heart will keep the courage of the quest, and hope the road’s last turn will be the best.
Adventure | Age | Courage | Fear | Future | Happy | Heart | Hope | Journey | Joy | Mourning | Past | Soul | Will | Youth | Youth |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
It is a gift to be able to paint a particular picture or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of the arts.
Day |
Go forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear and with a manly heart.
It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy, you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet juices.
Fear | Love | Man | Men | Revolution | Trust | Work | Worry |
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
Ideas have to be wedded to action; if there is no sex, no vitality in them, there is no action. Ideas cannot exist alone in the vacuum of the mind. Ideas are related to living... Warrior, jailer, priest - the eternal trinity which symbolizes our fear of life.
Art is the gift of God, and must be used in His Glory.