This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A human being can alter his life by altering his attitude of mind.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
Within each one of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from how we see ourselves. When, therefore, we find ourselves in a difficult situation, to which there is no solution, he can sometimes kindle a light that radically alters our attitude, the very attitude that led us into the difficult situation.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
It seems to me… that external circumstances often serve as occasions for a new attitude to life and the world, long prepared in the unconscious, to become manifest.
Circumstances | Life | Life | World |
Ronald Lewin, fully George Ronald Lewin
The practical value of intelligence depends on the attitude of mind of its recipients.
Intelligence | Mind | Value |
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
Complacency is the enemy. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be “insatiable in learning” and towards others to be “tireless in teaching.”
Complacency | Enemy | Learning | Learn |
The existentialist insight, in part, is that meaning is something we give to life. We do not find meaning so much as throw ourselves at it. The Zen insight, in part, is that worrying about meaning may itself make life less meaningful than it might have been. Part of the virtue of the Zen attitude lies in learning to not need to be busy: learning there is joy and meaning and peace in simply being mindful, not needing to change or be changed. Let the moment mean what it will.
Change | Insight | Joy | Learning | Life | Life | Meaning | Need | Peace | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Zen |
The Zen attitude is that meaning isn’t something to be sought. Meaning comes to us, or not. If it comes, we accept it. If not, we accept that too.
Children are happy because they live life abundantly. They put no limitations upon life whatever. The moment we put limitation upon life we cease to life abundantly. There is not a limiting condition in life. Life could not limit itself. It could not be kept away except through your own attitude of thought toward it.
I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress...It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitude is right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.
Challenge | Choice | Day | Decision | Extreme | Hope | Progress | Right |
If by prayer I mean the power of words to persuade God to do things, then prayer is futile and foolish. One might utter the words of the most devout prayer that was ever breathed and yet not be praying at all. It is the attitude of the personality which is the prayer, not the words.
The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight.
Individual | Life | Life | Man | Means | Revolution | Spirit |
Many Americans draw the boundaries of their self-interest very narrowly. Our culture's emphasis on individualism and competition reinforces an attitude of isolation and impotence toward global problems.
Competition | Culture | Global | Isolation | Problems | Self | Self-interest |
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.