This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If the subjective constitution of the senses in general were removed, the whole constitution and all the relation of objects in space and time, nay, space and time themselves, would vanish... As appearances they cannot exist in themselves but only in us. What objects are in themselves, apart from all the receptivity of our sensibility, remains completely unknown to us. We know nothing but our mode of perceiving them - a mode which is peculiar to us, and not necessarily shared in by every being.
Nothing | Sensibility | Space | Time |
If we judge objects merely according to concepts, then all representation of beauty is lost. Thus there can be no rule according to which anyone is to be forced to recognizes anything as beautiful... The beautiful is that which pleases universally without a concept... There can be no objective rule of taste which shall determine by means of concept what is beautiful.
In order to arrive at the reality of outer objects I have just as little need to resort to inference as I have in regard to the reality of the object of my inner sense, that is, in regard to the reality of my thoughts. For in both cases alike the objects are nothing but represenations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is at the same time a sufficient proof of their reality.
Consciousness | Little | Need | Nothing | Object | Order | Perception | Reality | Regard | Sense | Time |
How are space, time and that which fills both, the object of sensation, possible in general? The answer is: by means of the quality of our sensibility, according to which it is affected, in its peculiar way, by objects which are in themselves unknown and quite different from those appearances.
Means | Object | Sensibility | Space | Time |
What objects may be in themselves, apart from all this receptivity of our sensibility, remains completely unknown to us.
Things infinite and divine… are given not so much for definition as for trust; are less the objects we think of than the very tone and color of our thought, the tension of our love, the unappeasable thirst of grief and reverence.
John Foster, fully John Watson Foster
How little of our knowledge of mankind is derived from intentional accurate observation! Most of it has, unsought, found its way into the mind from the continual presentations of the objects to our unthinking view. It is a knowledge of sensation more than of reflection.
Knowledge | Little | Mankind | Mind | Observation | Reflection |
Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together and by the same means; the training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.
The florid, elevated, and figurative way is for the passions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the soul by showing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life, or less; but instruction is to be given by showing them what they naturally are. A man is to be cheated into passion, but reasoned into truth.
Anger | Fear | Life | Life | Love | Man | Passion | Soul | Truth | Instruction |
Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means.
Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.
Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means. The training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.
Henri Poincaré, fully Jules Henri Poincaré
Perceptual space, under its triple form, visual, tactile and motor, is essentially different from geometric space. It is neither homogeneous, nor isotropic; one can not even say that it has three dimensions. It is often said that we ‘project’ into geometric space the objects of our external perception; that we ‘localize’ them. Has this a meaning, and if so what? Does it mean that we represent to ourselves external objects in geometric space? Our representations are only the reproduction of our sensations; they can therefore be ranged only in the same frame as these, that is to say, in perceptual space. It is impossible for us to represent to ourselves external bodies in geometric space, as it is for a painter to paint on a plane canvas objects with their three dimensions. Perceptual space is only an image altered in shape by a sort of perspective, and we can represent to ourselves objects only by bringing them under the laws of this perspective. Therefore we do not represent to ourselves external bodies in geometric space, but we reason on these bodies as if they were situated in geometric space.
Meaning | Perception | Reason | Space |
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
The painter who draws by practice and judgment of the eye without the use of reason is like the mirror which reproduces within itself all the objects which are set opposite it without knowledge of the same.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and laborious attentions to little objects which neither require nor deserve a moment’s thought, lower a man, who from thence is thought (and not unjustly) incapable of greater matters.
Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation.
Ambition | Little | Man | Mind | Mortal | Patience | Pleasure |
[In the cave allegory] those whose who are destitute of philosophy may be compared to prisoners in a cave, who are only able to look in one direction because they are bound, and who have a fire behind them and a wall in front. Between them and the wall there is nothing; all that they see are shadows of themselves, and of objects behind them, cast on the wall by the light of the fire. Inevitably they regard these shadows as real, and have no notion of the objects to which they are due. At last some man succeeds in escaping from the cave to the light of the sun; for the first time he sees real things, and becomes aware that he had hitherto been deceived by shadows. If he is the sort of philosopher who is fit to become a guardian, he will feel it his duty to those who were formerly his fellow prisoners to go down again into the cave, instruct them as to the truth, and show them the way up. But he will have difficulty in persuading them, because, coming out of the sunlight, he will see shadows less clearly than they do, and will seem to them stupider than before his escape.
Difficulty | Duty | Light | Man | Nothing | Philosophy | Regard | Time | Truth | Will |
The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.
Circumstances | Comfort | Indifference | Luxury | Need |