This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
No matter how much we strive to understand, ultimate reality will always remain hidden? Only if the search for truth is motivated by the desire to reach an absolute answer. The person looking for certainty is bound to be disappointed... If on the other hand we realize that the partial truths we uncover are all legitimate aspects of the unknowable universe, then we can learn to enjoy the search and derive from it the pleasure one gets from any creative act... One must painstakingly match one’s preconceptions against actual, ongoing experience to begin separating truth from illusion.
Absolute | Desire | Experience | Illusion | Pleasure | Reality | Search | Truth | Universe | Will | Learn | Truths |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
The paradox of rising expectations suggests that improving the quality of life might be an insurmountable task. In fact, there is not inherent problem in our desire to escalate our goals, as long as we enjoy the struggle along the way. The problem arises when people are so fixated on what they want to achieve that they cease to derive pleasure from the present. When that happens, they forfeit their chance of contentment.
Chance | Contentment | Desire | Goals | Life | Life | Paradox | People | Pleasure | Present | Struggle |
The yen to become wanderers among the stars involves more than the need to satisfy a cosmic curiosity. Basically, it flows out of an instinctive need to evolve. We belong to an unfinished species. We have limitless capacities for growth; indeed, our uniqueness lies in our ability to steer our own evolution. The destination becomes visible through an enlarged perspective. The greatest adventure within the reach of a sentient species is seeing itself in an expanding relationship.
Ability | Adventure | Curiosity | Evolution | Growth | Need | Relationship |
None has more frequent conversations with disagreeable self than the man of pleasure; his enthusiasms are but few and transient; his appetites, like angry creditors, are continually making fruitless demands for what he is unable to pay; and the greater his former pleasures, the more strong his regret, the more impatient his expectations. A life of pleasure is, therefore, the most unpleasing life.
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
If the world has indeed been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.
Body | Love | Man | Pain | Perfection | Pleasure | Sorrow | Soul | World |
Half the pleasure of life consists of the opportunities one has neglected.
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character… I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace.
There is an unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
There is no stronger force that you can employ against temptation than wisdom. Complete understanding will bring you to the point where nothing can tempt you to actions that promise pleasure but in the end will only hurt you.
Force | Nothing | Pleasure | Promise | Temptation | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | Temptation |
This harmony of the soul, taken as a whole, is virtue; but the particular training in respect of pleasure and pain, which leads you always to hate what you ought to hate, and love what you ought to love from the beginning of life to the end, may be separated off; and, in my view, will be rightly called education.
Beginning | Education | Harmony | Hate | Life | Life | Love | Pain | Pleasure | Respect | Soul | Training | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Respect |