This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I develop the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any other that give the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so: It appear to me or should not think it, so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so, or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit I believe has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinion and persuade men into measures that I have been, time to time, engaged in promoting.
When the body gets full, the mind gets dull.
Gersonides, abbreviation of first letters as RalBaG from Levi ben Gerson NULL
By means of rational thought we have reached the opinion that God knows in advance only the possibilities open to a man in his freedom, not the particular decisions he will make.. It is the opinion of our religion that God never changes... and yet we find in the words of the prophets that God does repent over some things... It is impossible to solve this contradiction if we adopt the view that God knows particular things as particulars.
Contradiction | Freedom | God | Man | Means | Opinion | Religion | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Words | God | Thought |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
A statesman should follow public opinion as a coachman follows his horses; having firm hold on the reins, and guiding them.
Every affection of the mind that is attended with either pain or pleasure, hope or fear, is the cause of an agitation whose influence extends to the heart, and there induces change from the natural constitution, in the temperature, the pulse and the rest, which impairing all nutrition in its source and abating the powers at large, it is no wonder that various forms of incurable disease in the extremities and in the trunk are the consequence, inasmuch as in such circumstances the whole body labors under the effects of vitiated nutrition and want of native heat.
Agitation | Body | Cause | Change | Circumstances | Disease | Fear | Heart | Hope | Influence | Mind | Pain | Pleasure | Rest | Wisdom | Wonder |
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the leveling influence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practices so many petty deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.
Character | Distinguish | Existence | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Opinion | Popularity | Wisdom |
The nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to say, we understand nothing of what He is, but only that He is; and therefore the attributes we give Him are not to tell one another what He is, nor to signify our opinion of His nature, but our desire to honor Him with such names as we conceive most honorable amongst ourselves.
Desire | God | Honor | Nature | Nothing | Opinion | Wisdom | God | Understand |
I had a "near death experience" and remember thinking, "If only people knew what it was like to die, they wouldn't be afraid." I reached a point at which a voice began to ask me if I thought I'd completed what I'd come to do. was I going to leave my son, then age three, behind? There was no sense of threat or coercion. An absolute acceptance that whatever I did was all right, but pointing out that the moment of choice was now. The relief and release from the fear of dying changed my life. The reminder that "I am not my body" freed me to live my life in a different way. The understanding that no matter what is going on in our bodies, the essence of who we are is unaffected; this wisdom has enabled me to help other see their bodies in a different way. To see the body in illness not as an enemy, but as a faithful fried, programmed by; the soul to react in that exact way. To see illness as a confrontation in the physical of what one is reluctant to confront on the mental or emotional levels. In other words, a message, a communication, a time to listen and therefore a unique and powerful opportunity for transformation.
Absolute | Acceptance | Age | Body | Choice | Coercion | Death | Enemy | Experience | Fear | Life | Life | Opportunity | People | Right | Sense | Soul | Thinking | Thought | Time | Understanding | Unique | Wisdom | Words | Thought |
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ
The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents... It is a place where the city of man services not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community... It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.
Beauty | Body | Commerce | Desire | Goals | Hunger | Knowledge | Man | Men | Mind | Society | Wisdom | Society | Commerce | Beauty | Child |