This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
That thou mayest have pleasure in everything, seek pleasure in nothing.
Saint Basil, aka Basil of Caesarea, Saint Basil the Great NULL
A good deed is never lost. He who sows courtesy, reaps friendship; he who plants kindness, gathers love; pleasure bestowed upon a grateful mind was never sterile, but generally gratitude begets reward.
Courtesy | Good | Gratitude | Kindness | Love | Mind | Pleasure | Reward |
Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness off the deep springs of life. Youth means the temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living.
Adventure | Appetite | Courage | Distrust | Emotions | Enthusiasm | Fear | Heart | Ideals | Imagination | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Man | Means | Mind | Self | Soul | Spirit | Time | Will | Wonder | Worry | Youth | Youth | Old |
The moral pleasure in art, as well as the moral service that art performs, consists in the intelligent gratification of consciousness.
Art | Consciousness | Pleasure | Service | Art |
Differences of opinion give me but little concern; but it a real pleasure to be brought into communication with anyone who is in earnest, and who really looks to God's will as his standard of right and wrong, and judges of actions according to their greater or lesser conformity.
Conformity | God | Little | Looks | Opinion | Pleasure | Right | Will | Wrong |
Thomas De Quincey, fully Thomas Penson De Quincey
There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is to move; the first is a rudder, the second an oar or sail. The first speaks to the ere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.
Knowledge | Literature | Pleasure | Power | Reason | Sympathy | Teach | Understanding |
Jung equates the unconscious with the soul, and so when we try to live fully consciously in an intellectually predictable world, protected form all mysteries and comfortable with conformity, we lose our everyday opportunities for the soulful life. The intellect wants to know; the soul likes to be surprised. Intellect, looking outward, wants enlightenment and the pleasure of a burning enthusiasm. The soul, always drawn inward, seeks contemplation and the more shadowy, mysterious experience of the underworld.
Conformity | Contemplation | Enlightenment | Enthusiasm | Experience | Life | Life | Pleasure | Soul | Wants | World | Contemplation | Intellect |
Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.
Admiration | Envy | Fame | Mankind | Pleasure |
No profit grows where is no pleasure taken; in brief, sir, study what you most affect.
A person who wants approval is disturbed and irritated if someone questions his attitudes and opinions. But a wise man seeks truth and therefore feels pleasure if someone raises objections since this helps him correct his mistakes.
Take pleasure in what you have and you never have to envy anyone else. The best anyone can obtain from their possessions, experiences, accomplishments, skills or fame is happiness. If you have happiness from what you do and have, no one can really gain anything more than what you already have.
Envy | Fame | Pleasure | Possessions | Happiness |
Émile Durkheim, fully David Émile Durkheim
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.
Change | Contemplation | Existence | Inclination | Nature | Non-existence | Pleasure | Contemplation |
Since the mind is a specific biocomputer, it needs specific instructions and directions. The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.
Adventure | Goals | Mind | People | Plan | Reason | Will | Learn |