This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
No matter how or when a person acquired their irrational beliefs and self-sabotaging habits, they now, in the present, choose to maintain them - and that is why they are disturbed. One's past history and present life conditions importantly affect one; but they don't disturb one. A person's present philosophy is the main contributor of their current disturbance.
History | Life | Life | Past | Philosophy | Present | Self |
I will not let past failures haunt me. Even though my life is scarred with mistakes, I refuse to rummage through my trash heap of failures. I will admit them. I will correct them. I will press on. Victoriously. No failure is fatal. It's OK to stumble...I will get up. It's OK to fail...I will rise again. Today I will make a difference.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values. Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.
Future | Myth | Order | Past | Present | Society | Tradition | Society |
A candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle.
Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
It is better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.
J. P. Stern, fully Joseph Peter Maria Stern
Nietzsche’s approach developed eventually into a program for radically questioning all the foundations of Western thought. We are slaves to convention, he says - we base our whole lives on attitudes and ideas whose premises, if we ever get round to actually examining them, we reject. This makes ours an inauthentic way of living, a dead way of living. We must re-evaluate our values in the light of what we honestly do believe and feel.
Convention | Ideas | Light | Thought |
The cruelest insult… which can be offered to the unfortunate, is to appear to make light of their calamities.
If you want to bring a difficult relationship into the light of love, make up your mind to change your image of who both of you are.
Change | Light | Love | Mind | Relationship |
Alan Alda, born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once and a while, or the light won't come in.
Alan Alda, born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo
Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.
The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.
Greatness | Past | Understand |