This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Let us suppose a man to be engaged in the progressive voluptuousness of the most sensual scene. Here, if ever, we may expect sensation to be triumphant. Passion is in this case in its full career. He impatiently shuts out every consideration that may disturb his enjoyment; moral views and dissuasives can no longer obtrude themselves into his mind; he resigns himself, without power of resistance, to his predominant idea. Alas, in this situation, nothing is so easy as to extinguish his sensuality! Tell him at this moment that his father is dead, that he has lost or gained a considerable sum of money, or even that his favorite horse is stolen from the meadow, and his whole passion shall be instantly annihilated: so vast is the power which a mere proposition possesses over the mind of man. So conscious are we of the precariousness of the fascination of the senses that upon such occasions we provide against the slightest interruption. If our little finger ached, we might probably immediately bid adieu to the empire of this supposed almighty power. It is said to be an experiment successfully made by sailors and persons in that class of society, to lay a wager with their comrades that the sexual intercourse shall not take place between them and their bedfellow the ensuing night, and to trust to their veracity for a confession of the event. The only means probably by which any man ever succeeds in indulging the pleasures of sense, in contradiction to the habitual persuasion of his judgment, is by contriving to forget everything that can be offered against them. If, notwithstanding all his endeavors, the unwished for idea intrudes, the indulgence instantly becomes impossible. Is it to be supposed that the power of sensual allurement, which must be carefully kept alive, and which the slightest accident overthrows, can be invincible only to the artillery of reason, and that the most irresistible considerations of justice, interest and happiness will never be able habitually to control it?
William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
Power is, therefore, a word which we may use both in an active and in a passive signification; and in psychology we may apply it both to the active faculty and to the passive capacity of the mind.
Absolute | Ends | Indifference | Knowledge | Reason | Science | Truths |
William (Morley Punshon) McFee
Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!
Ends |
Business life, whether among ourselves or with other people, is even a sharp struggle for success. It will be none the less so in the future. Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy antiquated processes of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century.
Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, think but one thought of me up in the stars.
Contempt | Imagination |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
What a wonderfully exciting cough,' said the little man, quite startled by it, 'do you mind if I join you?' And with that he launched into the most extraordinary and spectacular fit of coughing which caught Arthur so much by surprise that he started to choke violently, discovered he was already doing it and got thoroughly confused.
Mass Media will respond that media issues are of great importance because they impact the public trust in news organizations. This ignores the fact that most people already believe Mass Media either makes stuff up, is biased one way or the other, or constantly gets information wrong. Finding out that journalists sometimes invent stories just confirms their preexisting viewpoint.
Innovation | Security | Sense | Survival | Thinking | Will | Loss |
A man who is always well satisfied with himself is seldom so with others, and others as little pleased with him.
ESPN has this problem with sports, it's impossible to fill 24 hours with sports programming so they have to resort to things like poker and arm wrestling tournaments.
We are eager to believe that others are flawed because we are eager to believe in what we wish for.
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves.
Man |
O, call back yesterday, did time return, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men! To-day, to-day, unhappy day too late, O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.
Attention | Ends | Men | Music | Taste | Truth | Words | Youth | Youth |
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven. All's Well That Ends Well
Oh, thou hast a damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee Hal, I knew nothing, and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Oh, what a world of vile ill-favored faults looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!