This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Freethinkers are those who reach judgment based on critical thinking and independent reasoning without regard to prevailing authority and tradition.
Authority | Critical thinking | Judgment | Regard | Thinking | Tradition | Critical Thinking |
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience--well that comes from poor judgment.
Experience | Good | Judgment |
Those who desire honor from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they delight in honor, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgment of those who speak about them.
Desire | Good | Honor | Judgment | Men | Opinion | Strength |
The states of virtue by which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e., art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophical wisdom, intuitive wisdom: we do not included judgment and opinion because in these we may be mistaken.
Art | Judgment | Knowledge | Opinion | Soul | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Each evening we should meditate upon the fact that one more day is gone from the list that make up the sum of our years...By so much the time is shortened that separates us from the grave, the judgment and the eternal destiny.
Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature.
Judgment |
Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one's knowledge or one's taste.
Exaggeration | Judgment | Knowledge | Prodigality | Taste |
Know yourself - in talents and capacity, in judgment and inclination.
Capacity | Inclination | Judgment |
Conscience without judgment is superstition.
Conscience | Judgment | Superstition |
When someone praises you, be judge alone: trust not men's judgment of you, but your own.
Good taste is the product of judgment rather than of intellect.
We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.