This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."
Ibn `Arabi, full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī
Beyond doubt, the worshipper of God shows ignorance when he criticizes others on account of their beliefs. If he understood the saying of Junayd, “The color of the water is the color of the vessel containing it,” he would not interfere with the beliefs of others, but would perceive God in every form and in every belief.
We gain our ends only with the laws of nature; we control her only by understanding her laws.
Control | Ends | Nature | Understanding |
At the moment that you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don’t understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
Awe | Life | Life | Time | Understanding |
The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous and mutually beget each other.
Four things are required to develop generosity of spirit: (1) The intention to serve God in all our affairs. (2) The belief that if that intention is honored, the Universe will provide all that is required materially and spiritually for our success. (3) The understanding that we receive as we give, and that our own creativity is enhanced through mentoring others. (4) Practical groundedness. God can’t deliver the lottery jackpot unless we buy a ticket!
Belief | Creativity | Generosity | God | Intention | Receive | Spirit | Success | Understanding | Universe | Will | God |
The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness an crookedness is our own. the wisdom of god created understanding, fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the ye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glitterings, what is that to truth?
Darkness | God | Ignorance | Object | Truth | Understanding | Wisdom | God |
Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart.
Grief | Heart | Men | Reflection | Understanding |
The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.
From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.
Ideas | Life | Life | Mind | Understanding |
A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.
Affliction | Beauty | Good | Ignorance | Innocence | Knowledge | Poverty | Simplicity | Temper | Will | Wit | Beauty |
In the house of Ignorance there is no mirror in which to view your soul.
Knowledge and understanding are life's faithful companions who will never prove untrue to you. For knowledge is your crown, and understanding your staff; and when they are with you, you can possess no greater treasures.
Knowledge | Life | Life | Understanding | Will |
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.