This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I do not make success or failure the criteria by which I live. I like to take chances and I am impressed by others who do so with a freedom of spirit. Those who dare to try also dare to fail. This is a wonderful thing! If we limit ourselves to what is risk-free, we may be missing out on the most rewarding adventures in life.
Failure | Freedom | Life | Life | Risk | Spirit | Success | Failure |
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger
The individual freedoms destroyed by the increase in national authority have been in the main the freedom to deny black Americans their elementary rights as citizens, the freedom to work little children in mills... the freedom to pay starvation wages... the freedom to... pollute the environment - all freedoms that, one supposes, a civilized country can readily do without
Authority | Children | Freedom | Individual | Little | Rights | Work |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
The distinctive characteristics of human nature are the freedom of the human consciousness and the human will.
Consciousness | Freedom | Human nature | Nature | Will |
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Action | Doubt | Freedom of speech | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Speech | Thought | Thought |
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
Action | Doubt | Freedom of speech | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Speech | Thought | Thought |
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think.
Action | Freedom of speech | Freedom | Speech |
The wisest man may be wiser today than he was yesterday, and tomorrow than he is today. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone.
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release; the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure; the comforter of him whom time cannot console.
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cue, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.
This body is mortal, forever in the clutch of death. But within it resides the Self, immortal, and without form. This Self, when associated in consciousness with the body, is subject to pleasure and pain; and so long as this association continues, no man can find freedom from pains and pleasures. But when the association comes to an end, there is an end also of pain and pleasure. Rising above physical consciousness, knowing the Self as distinct from the sense-organs and the mind., knowing Him in his true light, one rejoices and one is free.
Association | Body | Consciousness | Death | Freedom | Knowing | Light | Man | Mind | Mortal | Pain | Pleasure | Self | Sense | Association |
Modern culture is defined by this extraordinary freedom to ransack the world storehouse and to engorge any and every style it comes upon. Such freedom comes from the fact that the axial principle of modern culture is the expression and remaking of the “self” in order to achieve self-realization and self-fulfillment. And in its search, there is a denial of any limits or boundaries to experience. It is a reaching out for all experience; nothing is forbidden, all is to be explored.
Culture | Experience | Freedom | Fulfillment | Nothing | Order | Search | Self | Self-realization | Style | World |
Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman
Discipline is the surest means to greater freedom and independence; it provides the focus to achieve the skill level and depth of knowledge that translates into more options in life... The Law of Discipline points to a paradox. While freedom is our transcendent birthright, it must be earned in this world; discipline remains the key to freedom and independence.
Discipline | Focus | Freedom | Knowledge | Law | Life | Life | Means | Paradox | Skill | World |
Your ‘personal’ life cannot have a lasting intrinsic meaning. It can acquire a contingent meaning, but only by being fitted into and subordinated to something which ‘lasts’ and has a meaning in itself. Is this something what we attempt to identify when we speak of ‘Life’? Can your life have a meaning as a tiny fragment of life? Does Life exist? Seek and you shall find, experience Life as reality. Has Life a ‘meaning’? Experience Life as reality and the question becomes meaningless. Seek - ? Seek by daring to take the leap into unconditional obedience. Dare this when you are challenged, for only by the light of a challenge will you be able to see the cross-roads and, in full awareness of your choice, turn your back upon your personal life - with no right ever to look back. You will find that ‘in the pattern’ you are liberated from the need to live ‘with the herd’. You will find that, thus subordinated, your life will receive from Life all its meaning, irrespective of the conditions given you for its realization. You will find that the freedom of the continual farewell, the hourly self-surrender, gives to your experience of reality the purity and clarity which signify - seal-realization. You will find that obedience requires an act of will which must continually be re-iterated, and that you will fail, if anything in your personal life is allowed to slip back into the center.
Awareness | Challenge | Choice | Daring | Experience | Freedom | Life | Life | Light | Meaning | Need | Obedience | Purity | Question | Reality | Receive | Right | Self | Surrender | Will | Awareness |
Anything and everything in existence can be mastered when all effort is relaxed and the mind is absorbed in the infinite unbounded nature of consciousness. And then we are no longer upset by the play of opposites. And life is lived in freedom and joy.
Consciousness | Effort | Existence | Freedom | Joy | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | Play |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed.