This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In any activity, we have to know what to expect, how to reach our objectives and what capacity we possess for the proposed task. The only people who can say they have renounced the fruit are those who, thus equipped, feel no desire for the results of the conquest, and remain absorbed in combat. You can renounce the fruit, but this renunciation does not mean indifference toward the result.
Capacity | Desire | Indifference | Objectives | People |
I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected… I wept because I was re-experiencing the enthusiasm of my childhood; I was once again a child, and nothing in the world could cause me harm… If I don’t think about love, I will be nothing… But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here… If you really desire something, the whole universe will conspire to help you… If you must say yes, say it with an open heart. If you must say no, say it without fear… If you want to succeed at something, let your eyes open and focused thinking to realize exactly what you want.
Beauty | Cause | Desire | Enthusiasm | Nothing | Soul | Thinking | Time | Universe | Will | World | Beauty | Think | Understand |
We refuse to look at life as a great adventure that has no limits… We pretend to be strong because we are weak… We show our strength, so that no one can see our frailty. That is why, whenever you judge your brother, be aware that it is you who is in the dock… We should never condemn the lives of others, because everyone knows how great the pain and sacrifice him. One has to think you found the right path, quite another to think your way is the only option… There is no tragedy, only the unavoidable. Everything has its reason for being: you only need to distinguish what is temporary from what is lasting… There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.
Adventure | Desire | Distinguish | Life | Life | Mission | Need | Pain | Reason | Right | Sacrifice | Soul | Truth | Think |
The fact that certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation, thus moving from one pole of the contradiction to the other... Theirs is a fundamental role, and has been throughout the history of this struggle. It happens, however, that as they cease to be exploiters or indifferent spectators or simply the heirs of exploitation and move to the side of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin: their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people's ability to think, to want, and to know. Accordingly, these adherents to the people's cause constantly run the risk of falling into a type of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors. The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to justify that generosity. Our converts, on the other hand, truly desire to transform the unjust order; but because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favor without that trust.
Ability | Cause | Confidence | Contradiction | Desire | Generosity | History | Indispensable | Justify | Order | People | Risk | Struggle | Trust |
It is impossible to see the face in the turbulent waters… At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss… At some point of our life, we will lose control of everything surrounds us and we will be controlled by the fate. That is the world's biggest lie… It is part of the human nature always to judge others very severely and, when the wind turns against us, always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds, or to blame someone else for our mistakes… It isn't the desire to abide by the law that makes everyone behave as society requires, but the fear of punishment. Each one of us carries a gallows inside us.
Blame | Control | Desire | Fear | Human nature | Law | Nature | Society | Will | Society |
It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny... It's a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your destiny. It prepares your spirit and you will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.
Desire | Destiny | Force | Mission | Soul | Spirit | Time | Truth | Will | Afraid |
Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings. Like her, these men, and the many others who sought her company, were all tormented by that same destructive feeling, the sense that no one else on the planet cared for them… Hunger, thirst is truly desire to be around a person. And from there, everything changes, men and women together into a play, but before that happens-the appeal has brought them closer together-it cannot be explained. The attraction was not the desire to touch; it is in a state of clarity and purity. When desire is still in a pure state, the man and woman feel love life, and they live every moment in a respectful, alert, always ready to honor and celebrate the blessings that are coming. When people feel like they will not rush, they will not rush to into action without thinking. They know that the inevitable will happen, what is real will always find a way to express itself. When that time comes, they will not hesitate, they will not miss the opportunity, they will not lose a single magic moment, because they appreciate the significance of each moment… I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.
Action | Blessings | Desire | Honor | Inevitable | Love | Magic | Man | Men | People | Sense | Time | Will | Woman |
Peace Pilgrim, born Mildred Lisette Norman Ryder
Anything you strive to hold captive will hold you captive and if you desire freedom you must give freedom.
One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope too like despair For prudence to smother, I can give not what men call love: But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And heaven rejects not: The desire of the moth for the star, The devotion of something afar From the sphere of our sorrow?
Desire | Despair | Devotion | Disdain | Heart | Heaven | Hope | Men | Prudence | Prudence | Worship |
The great object I desire to accomplish by this institution [the Cooper Institute], is to open the avenues of scientific knowledge to the youth of our country, so unfolding the volume of Nature, that the young may see the beauties of creation.
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
Men passionately desire to live after death, but they often pass away without noticing the fact that the memory of a really good person always lives. It is impressed upon the next generation, and is transmitted again to the children. Is that not an immortality worth striving for?
Desire | Good | Immortality | Memory | Worth |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
But side by side with these customs, necessary to the life of societies and the preservation of the race, other desires, other passions, and therefore other habits and customs, are evolved in human association. The desire to dominate others and impose one's own will upon them; the desire to seize upon the products of the labor of a neighboring tribe; the desire to surround oneself with comforts without producing anything, while slaves provide their master with the means of procuring every sort of pleasure and luxury — these selfish, personal desires give rise to another current of habits and customs.
Desire | Labor | Life | Life | Luxury | Means | Pleasure | Will |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
As to the impotence of repression — it is sufficiently demonstrated by the disorder of present society and by the necessity of a revolution that we all desire or feel inevitable. In the domain of economy, coercion has led us to industrial servitude; in the domain of politics — to the State, that is to say, to the destruction of all ties that formerly existed among citizens, and to the nation becoming nothing but an incoherent mass of obedient subjects of a central authority.
Coercion | Desire | Incoherent | Necessity | Nothing | Politics | Present | Revolution | Society | Society |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
Relatively speaking, law is a product of modern times. For ages and ages mankind lived without any written law, even that graved in symbols upon the entrance stones of a temple. During that period, human relations were simply regulated by customs, habits, and usages, made sacred by constant repetition, and acquired by each person in childhood, exactly as he learned how to obtain his food by hunting, cattle-rearing, or agriculture… Side by side with these customs, necessary to the life of societies and the preservation of the race, other desires, other passions, and therefore other habits and customs, are evolved in human association. The desire to dominate others and impose one's own will upon them... Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.
Desire | Law | Life | Life | Mankind | Nature | Sacred | Will |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
Such was law; and it has maintained its two-fold character to this day. Its origin is the desire of the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves for their own advantage. Its character is the skillful commingling of customs useful to society, customs which have no need of law to insure respect, with other customs useful only to rulers, injurious to the mass of the people, and maintained only by the fear of punishment.
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
I see nothing wrong with the human trait to desire. In fact, I consider it integral to our success mechanism. Becoming attached to what we desire is what causes the trouble. If you must have it in order to be happy, then you are denying the happiness of the here and now.
Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL
Believe me, many things are attributed to gravity and wisdom which are really due to incapacity and sloth. Men often despise what they despair of obtaining. It is in the very nature of ignorance to scorn what it cannot understand, and to desire to keep others from attaining what it cannot reach. Hence the false judgments upon matters of which we know nothing, by which we evince our envy quite as clearly as our stupidity.
Desire | Despair | Despise | Envy | Ignorance | Men | Nature | Wisdom |