This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight.
Exaggeration | Fear | Humility | Ridicule |
Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.
When you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that makes it good or bad.
A free and resourceful and fully equipped human body that's freed of the eight unfree states is not easy to get. To get to the heart of this free and resourceful occasion and to get past the pleasures of life is not easy to do. To see what is wrong with the phenomenon of samsara and accomplish nirvana is not something easy to do. Although one might practice true dharma extensively the purest conductive conditions don't easily join. A lama who masters instructions and scriptures and logic and has a compassionate heart is not easy to find. A student with faith who does not get fed up or exhausted and is able to actually practice is not easy to find. A practice environment blessed with the proper conditions free of all hazard and fear is not easy to find. Friends with the same motivation and way to apply it who’s thinking accords with your own are not easy to find A body that's able to work with its pain and illness and to do all you bid it is not something easy to find. Although you might get every one of these factors together to practice with one-pointed mind is not easy to do. These are nine things which are difficult to come by. They're difficult, but it's these difficult things you must do.
Body | Faith | Fear | Hazard | Heart | Life | Life | Mind | Pain | Past | Practice | Thinking | Work | Wrong | Blessed |
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. It is wrong then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences, but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.
Beauty | Individual | Life | Life | Man | Right | Wrong | Beauty |
I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically inexpedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
I can restructure your mind and all your habits; of thinking, talking – restructure for your sake, not for mine – not that I will teach you that it is right or wrong but to do something to help you to feel more yourself and actually give you the kind of person that you have always dreamt to be.
Acquire knowledge. It enableth its posessor to distinguish right from wrong it lighteth the way to Heave it is our friend in the desert, our society in solitude, our companion when friendless it guideth us to happiness it sustaineth us in misery it is an ornament among friends, and an armour against enemies.
Distinguish | Friend | Right | Society | Wrong | Society | Happiness |
Do not be people without minds of your own, saying that if others treat you well you will treat them well and that if they do wrong you will do wrong. But (instead) accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and not to do wrong if they do evil.
Inside of a ring or out, ain't nothing wrong with going down. It's staying down that's wrong.
The Ten Mohist Doctrines [paraphrase] As their movement developed, the Mohists came to present themselves as offering a collection of ten key doctrines, divided into five pairs. The ten doctrines correspond to the titles of the ten triads, the ten sets of three essays that form the core of the Mozi. Although the essays in each triad differ in detail, the gist of each doctrine may be briefly summarized as follows. “Elevating the Worthy” and “Conforming Upward.” The purpose of government is to achieve a stable social, economic, and political order (zhi, pronounced “jr”) by promulgating a unified conception of morality (yi). This task of moral education is to be carried out by encouraging everyone to “conform upward” to the good example set by social and political superiors and by rewarding those who do so and punishing those who do not. Government is to be structured as a centralized, bureaucratic state led by a virtuous monarch and managed by a hierarchy of appointed officials. Appointments are to be made on the basis of competence and moral merit, without regard for candidates' social status or origins. “Inclusive Care” and “Rejecting Aggression.” To achieve social order and exemplify the key virtue of ren (humanity, goodwill), people must inclusively care for each other, having as much concern for others' lives, families, and communities as for their own, and in their relations with others seek to benefit them. Military aggression is wrong for the same reasons that theft, robbery, and murder are: it harms others in pursuit of selfish benefit, while ultimately failing to benefit Heaven, the spirits, or society as a whole. “Thrift in Utilization” and “Thrift in Funerals.” To benefit society and care for the welfare of the people, wasteful luxury and useless expenditures must be eliminated. Seeking always to bring wealth to the people and order to society, the ren (humane) person avoids wasting resources on extravagant funerals and prolonged mourning (which were the custom in ancient China). “Heaven's Intention” and “Elucidating Ghosts.” Heaven is the noblest, wisest moral agent, so its intention is a reliable, objective standard of what is morally right (yi) and must be respected. Heaven rewards those who obey its intention and punishes those who defy it, hence people should strive to be humane and do what is right. Social and moral order (zhi) can be advanced by encouraging belief in ghosts and spirits who reward the good and punish the wicked. “Rejecting Music” and “Rejecting Fatalism.” The humane (ren) person opposes the extravagant musical entertainment and other luxuries enjoyed by rulers and high officials, because these waste resources that could otherwise be used for feeding and clothing the common people. Fatalism is not ren, because by teaching that our lot in life is predestined and human effort is useless, it interferes with the pursuit of economic wealth, a large population, and social order (three primary goods that the humane person desires for society). Fatalism fails to meet a series of justificatory criteria and so must be rejected.
Aggression | Belief | Care | Competence | Custom | Doctrine | Education | Effort | Entertainment | Example | Good | Government | Heaven | Intention | Life | Life | Luxury | Morality | Mourning | Murder | Order | People | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Regard | Reward | Right | Society | Virtue | Virtue | Waste | Wealth | Wrong | Society | Government | Murder |
There are a few of us — madmen all! — who are in love with knowing, who would sell the last shirt from our backs for one small truth, one tiny star-fire to light up the murk and mystery of what we call our life… We may go blind before we see it, that's the haunting... No man — prince, peasant, pope, — has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy!
God | Liberty | Light | Love | Man | Mystery | Wrong | God |
Raising human beings is a process of teaching children right from wrong and turning them into responsible individuals.
The inquiry method is motivated by Postman and Weingartner's recognition that good learners and sound reasoners center their attention and activity on the dynamic process of inquiry itself, not merely on the end product of static knowledge. They write that certain characteristics are common to all good learners saying that all good learners have: Self-confidence in their learning ability - Pleasure in problem solving - A keen sense of relevance - Reliance on their own judgment over other people's or society's - No fear of being wrong - No haste in answering - Flexibility in point of view - Respect for facts, and the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion - No need for final answers to all questions, and comfort in not knowing an answer to difficult questions rather than settling for a simplistic answer.
Ability | Attention | Comfort | Distinguish | Dynamic | Fear | Flexibility | Good | Haste | Inquiry | Judgment | Knowing | Learning | Method | Need | Opinion | Pleasure | Respect | Sense | Sound | Wrong | Flexibility | Respect |
I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles... With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization -- that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls.
Beauty | Civilization | Life | Life | Will | Wrong | Beauty |