This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways... But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or my self. By which words I do not denote any of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consist in being perceived.
Existence | Ideas | Imagination | Knowledge | Memory | Mind | Self | Soul | Spirit | Words |
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Patriotism is often understood to mean only a readiness for exceptional sacrifices and actions. Essentially, however, it is the sentiment which, in the relationships of our daily life and under ordinary conditions, habitually recognizes that the community is one’s substantive groundwork and end. It is out of this consciousness, which during life’s daily round stands the test in all circumstances, that there subsequently also arises the readiness for extraordinary exertions. But since men would often rather be magnanimous than law-abiding, they readily persuade themselves that they possess this exceptional patriotism in order to be sparing in the expression of a genuine patriotic sentiment or to excuse their lack of it. If again this genuine patriotism is looked upon as that which may begin of itself and arise from subjective ideas and thoughts, it is being confused with opinion, because so regarded patriotism is deprived of its true ground, objective reality.
Circumstances | Consciousness | Ideas | Law | Life | Life | Men | Opinion | Order | Patriotism | Reality | Sentiment |
The greatest ideas seem meager enough when they have passed through the sieve of petty minds.
Gerald Brenan, fully Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan
Intellectuals are people who believe that ideas are of more importance than values; that is to say, their own ideas and other people's values.
We see facts with our eyes; we see ideas with our minds; we see ideals with our souls. Whatever we see with our souls is real and permanent and cannot be destroyed.
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 |
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.
When young men are beginning life, the most important period, it is often said, is that in which their habits are formed. That is a very important period. But the period in which the ideas of the young are formed and adopted is more important still. For the ideal with which you go forth to measure things determines the nature, so far as you are concerned, of everything you meet.
Beginning | Ideas | Important | Life | Life | Men | Nature |
Metaphysics has for the real object of its investigation three ideas only: God, Freedom and Immortality.
Freedom | God | Ideas | Immortality | Metaphysics | Object |
Reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation that must form our judgment.
Conversation | Ideas | Judgment | Meditation | Men | Reading |
In the heat of [social] movements brains are set stirring with new ideas which live on through quieter times, waiting for another opportunity to ignite into action and change the world around us.
Greatness, in the last analysis, is largely bravery - courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards and respectable ways of doing things. This is one of the chief elements in what we vaguely call capacity. If you do not dare differ from your associates and teachers you will never be great or your life sublime. You may be the happier as a result, or you may be miserable. Each of us is great insofar as we perceive and act on the infinite possibilities which lie undiscovered and unrecognized about us.
Associates | Bravery | Capacity | Courage | Greatness | Ideas | Life | Life | Will | Old |
The word “independence” is united to the accessory ideas of dignity and virtue. The word “dependence” is united to the ideas of inferiority and corruption.
Corruption | Dependence | Dignity | Ideas | Inferiority | Virtue | Virtue |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstances with which they cannot contend.
Circumstances | Ideas |