This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The sun does not shine there, nor the moon and the stars, nor these lightnings-much less this fire. He shining, everything shines after Him. By his light all this is lighted.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.
The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.
The fruit of arrogance is a fall; but a fall is often an occasion of humility for those willing to profit by it.
The fact that both ego and self say "I" is a source of confusion and misidentification. The well-informed ego says truly, "I am what I know myself to be." The self says merely, "I am.”
Pause now to ask yourself the following question: "Am I dreaming or awake, right now?" Be serious, really try to answer the question to the best of your ability and be ready to justify your answer.
I suggested that dreams are simulations of the world created by our perceptual systems. The introduction to waking perception that you just read will help you understand this theory. Consider, first of all, how sleep modifies the process of perception. During REM sleep, as you learned in chapter 2, sensory input from the outside world and body movement are both suppressed, while the entire brain is highly active. The activity of the brain raises certain schemas above their perceptual thresholds. These schemas enter consciousness, causing the dreamer to see, feel, hear, and experience things not present in the external environment. Ordinarily, if you were to see something that wasn't really there, contradictory sensory input would rapidly correct your mistaken impression. Why doesn't the same thing happen during dreaming? The answer is because there is little or no sensory input available to the brain for correcting such mistakes.
Not all lucid dreams are useful but they all have a sense of wonder about them. If you must sleep through a third of your life, why should you sleep through your dreams, too?
Body | Dreams | Experience | Little | Perception | Present | Will | World | Understand |
Dream research is a wonderful field. All you do is sleep for a living.
Dreams | Experience | Knowledge | Learning | People |
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
The ego consciously takes the whole man into its service as a piece of apparatus. In this re-organization the ego as business-manager delegates so much of itself to the ego as business-mechanism, that it becomes quite abstract, a mere reference-point: self-preservation forfeits its self. Character traits, from genuine kindness to the hysterical fit of rage, become capable of manipulation, until they coincide exactly with the demands of a given situation. With their mobilization they change. All that is left are the light, rigid, empty husks of emotions, matter transportable at will, devoid of anything personal. They are no longer the subject; rather, the subject responds to them as to his internal object.
Dreams | Empiricist | Looks | Nothing | Public |
Theodore Dreiser, fully Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser
A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a tool, or a gambler — acting for himself or for others — he must employ such. A real man — a financier — is never a tool. He used tools. He created. He led.
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
Ability | Better | Business | Civilization | Cost | Deeds | Dreams | Efficiency | Future | Glory | Heart | Past | Will | Deeds | Business | Intellect | Think |
Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo
I seemed to hear these words at a rate of infinite sweetness, because his eyes had almost the tone, and phrases that sent me his eyes echoed in my heart as if an invisible mouth had blown in my soul.
Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man's conscience and his judgment are the same thing, and as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous.
Anger | Beginning | Body | Cause | Desire | Dreams | Imagination | Kindness | Lying | Thought | Thought |
From whence it happens, that they which trust to books, do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves; but spend time in fluttering over their books, as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in.
Abuse | Belief | Change | Credit | Distinguish | Doubt | Dreams | Evil | Fear | God | Ignorance | Man | Men | Need | Opinion | Past | People | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Religion | Right | Time | Vision | Wise | God | Think |
The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.
Action | Agitation | Distinguish | Dreams | Man | Object | Sense | Silence | Thought | Absurdity | Think | Thought |