This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
Body | Death | Fear | God | Individual | Reflection | God |
A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.
A peace must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.
The amelioration of the condition of mankind, and the increase of human happiness ought to be the leading objects of every political institution, and the aim of every individual, according to the measure of his power, in the situation he occupies.
Individual | Mankind | Power | Happiness |
The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent of opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point.
Appetite | Desire | Good | Object | Opinion | Thinking | Thought | Thought |
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
Affection and aversion for the objects of sense abide in the senses; let none come under the dominion of these two; they are obstructers of the path.
Sense |
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
He whose heart is unattached to objects of the senses, findeth that within which is very bliss; he who resteth in identity with the One Supreme, enjoyeth bliss eternal.
A clear stream reflects all the objects on its shore, but is unsullied by them; so it should be with our hearts; they should show the effect of all earthly objects, but remain unstained by any... All worldly things are so much without us, and so subject to variety and uncertainty, that they do not make us when they come, nor mend us while they stay, nor undo us when they are taken away.
There are two kinds of constancy in love, one arising from incessantly finding in the loved one fresh objects to love, the other from regarding it as a point of honor to be constant.
Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood.
Contention | Despair | Fear | Force | Future | History | Humanity | Love | Man | Mankind | Memory | Mind | Motives | Nature | Past | Peace | Pity | Power | Pride | Property | Silence | Society | Submission | Success | Society |
If we had no motivation to be preoccupied with our sensations, the impressions that objects made on us would pass like shadows, and leave no trace. After several years, we would be the same as we were at our first moment, without having acquired any knowledge, and without having any other faculties than feeling. But the nature of our sensations does not let us remain enslaved in this lethargy. Since they are necessarily agreeable or disagreeable, we are involved in seeking the former, avoiding the latter; and the greater the intensity of difference between pleasure and pain, the more it occasions action in our souls. Thus the privation of an object that we judge necessary for our well-being, gives us disquiet, that uneasiness we call need, and from which desires are born. These needs recur according to circumstances, often quite new ones present themselves, and it is in this way that our knowledge and faculties develop.
Action | Circumstances | Knowledge | Lethargy | Nature | Need | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Present |
The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.
Axioms | Nature | Sense | Understanding |
Subatomic particles are dynamic patterns which have a space aspect and a time aspect. Their space aspect makes them appear as objects with a certain mass, their time aspect as processes involving the equivalent energy… When we observe them we never see any substance; what we observe are dynamic patterns continually changing into one another – a continuous dance of energy.
George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways... But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or my self. By which words I do not denote any of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consist in being perceived.
Existence | Ideas | Imagination | Knowledge | Memory | Mind | Self | Soul | Spirit | Words |
A friend’s only gift is himself, and friendship is not friendship, it is not a form of free or liberal society, if it does not terminate in an ideal possession, in an object loved for its own sake. Such objects can be ideas only, not forces, for forces are subterranean and instrumental things, having only such value as they borrow from their ulterior effects and manifestations... We are not to look now for what makes friendship useful, but for whatever may be found in friendship that may lend utility to life.
Friend | Ideas | Life | Life | Object | Society | Friendship | Value |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
It is a gift to be able to paint a particular picture or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day - that is the highest of the arts.
Day |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
We should treat our minds as innocent and ingenious children whose guardians we are - be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.