This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
The regular social progress though which a growing society advances from one stage in its growth to another is a compound movement in which a creative individual or minority first withdraws from the common life of the society, then works out, in seclusion, a solution for some problem with which the society as a whole is confronted, and finally re-enters into communion with the rest of society in order to help it forward on its road by imparting to it the results of the creative work which the temporarily secluded individual or minority has accomplished during the interval between withdrawal and return.
Growth | Individual | Life | Life | Order | Progress | Rest | Seclusion | Society | Work | Society |
One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him. The disposition of the first is subjective, of the second objective. The one is, in the whole of his existence, more in the nature of an idea which is merely presented, the other more of the being who presents it.
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Suffering is the essence of life, because it is the inevitable product of an unresolved tension between a living creature’s essential impulse to try to make itself into the centre of the Universe and its essential dependence on the rest of Creation and on the Absolute Reality.
Absolute | Dependence | Impulse | Inevitable | Life | Life | Reality | Rest | Suffering | Universe |
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness… It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature – and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give it meaning – and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are of no concern of mine; it is not me or “The Fountainhead” that they will betray: it is their own souls.
Courage | Greatness | Man | Meaning | Reality | Rest | Will | World |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Love, children, and work are the great sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world.
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
In this world, aspirants may find enlightenment by two different paths. For the contemplative is the path of knowledge: for the active is the path of selfless action. Nobody can become perfect by merely ceasing to act. In fact, nobody can ever rest from his activity even for a moment.
Action | Enlightenment | Knowledge | Rest | World |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Music illustrates the primordial forces of nature, while li reflects the products of creation. Heaven represents the principle of eternal motion, while Earth represents the principle of remaining still, and these two principles of motion and rest permeate life between Heaven and Earth.
Earth | Eternal | Heaven | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Principles | Rest |
The only God whom our thoughts can rest on, our hearts cling to, and our conscience can recognize, is the God whose image dwells in our own souls.
Conscience | God | Rest | God |
Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have no fear? That is the greatest gift: no fear! When you truly realize what it is, then there is no fear, nothing to hurt you, nothing to destroy you. Nothing can take your life, because your life is unborn, therefore undying. All the rest is a dream.
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
The hopes of the world rest on the flexibility, vigor, capacity for new thought, and the fresh outlook of the young.
Capacity | Flexibility | Rest | Thought | World |
Most men are in a coma when they are at rest and made when they act.
A feeling of utter worthlessness levels a man's attitude toward his fellow beings. He views the whole of humanity as being of one kind. He will despise equally those who love him and those who hate him, those who are noble and those who are mean, those who are compassionate and those who are cruel. It is as if the feeling of worthlessness cuts one off from the rest of mankind. One sees humanity as a foreign species.
Despise | Hate | Humanity | Love | Man | Mankind | Rest | Will |