This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A task without a vision is drudgery; a vision without a task is a dram; a task with a vision is victory.
Vision |
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Lines converging from the base of a pyramid start from infinite points of diversity. The nearer the apex the closer they come to one another until at the summit they reach the point of unity. So it is that religions at the base exhibit irreconcilable differences and conflicts. But as they approach sight of the spiritual light of their origin, they, like converging lines within a pyramid, draw close to one another until the supernal vision at the apex submerges all differences into unity.
Visionary sights unseen see future shapes never made from thoughts unthought which imagine the unimaginable in new colour vision of everything out there but not as we know it.
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.
Perfection of hearing is not hearing others, but oneself. Perfection of vision is not seeing others, but oneself.
Perfection | Vision |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
If you don’t know how to serve men, why worry about serving the gods?
Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddied? You are the one who must grow up.
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
If we can't have all we want, let us not poison our days with worry and resentment. Let us be good to ourselves. Let us be philosophical. And philosophy, according to Epictecal, boils down to this: "The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."
Good | Little | Man | Philosophy | Resentment | Worry | Happiness |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first freedom is speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world-terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world-terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
Aggression | Fear | Freedom from fear | Freedom | Future | God | Life | Life | Means | Position | Speech | Time | Vision | Will | World | Worship | God |
What we need... is a new “paradigm” - a new vision of reality; a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions, and values. The beginnings of this change, of the shift from the mechanistic to the holistic conception of reality, are already visible in all fields and are likely to dominate the present decade.
Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do... For me, the conception of hell lies in two words: “too late.”
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has not other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
Beauty | Defeat | Despise | Discipline | Evil | Joy | Life | Life | Mind | Strength | Vision |
It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy, you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet juices.
Fear | Love | Man | Men | Revolution | Trust | Work | Worry |