This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Our current neglect of Law is yet another of the many indications that twentieth-century educators have ceased to be concerned with questions of ultimate truth or meaning and (apart from mere vocational training) are interested solely in the dissemination of a rootless and irrelevant culture, and the fostering of the solemn foolery of scholarship for scholarship’s sake.
Character | Culture | Law | Meaning | Neglect | Training | Truth |
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
Knowing the truth carries with it an extraordinary responsibility. Meeting that responsibility can be your most rewarding experience.
Character | Experience | Knowing | Responsibility | Truth |
Anything unforgiven is held in the body, the emotions, the mind, and even the soul. Unreleased, it crystallizes, forming obstructions in the very pathways along which energy must flow. Given enough time to harden, it will result in sickness.
Body | Character | Emotions | Energy | Enough | Mind | Soul | Time | Will |
We draw to ourselves what we really want, not what we think we want. It’s not a bad idea to ask ourselves now and then, Whose truth are we living? Whose dream are we dreaming?
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
It’s quite true what philosophy says, that life must be understood backwards. But one then forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forwards. A principle which, the more one thinks it through, precisely leads to the conclusion that life in time can never properly be understood, just because no moment can acquire the complete stillness needed to orient oneself backwards.
Character | Life | Life | Philosophy | Time |
Self-knowledge brings tranquillity to the mind, and then only can truth come into being. Truth cannot be sought after. Truth is the unknown, and that which you seek is already known. Truth comes into being unsought when the mind is without prejudice, when there is the understanding of the whole process of ourselves.
Character | Knowledge | Mind | Prejudice | Self | Self-knowledge | Tranquility | Truth | Understanding |
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
A crowd... in its very concept is the untruth, by reason of the fact that it renders the individual completely impenitent and irresponsible, or at least weakens his sense of responsibility by reducing it to a fraction.
Character | Individual | Reason | Responsibility | Sense |
Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor
To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth that like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard... Even in time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. If we had no other purpose in life, it would be good enough to simply take care of them and goose them once in a while.
Care | Character | Enough | Focus | God | Good | Greed | Life | Life | People | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Truth |
Lies are as communicative as fleas; and truth is as difficult to lay hold upon as air.
The things a man believes most profoundly are rarely on the surface of his mind or tongue. Newly acquired notions - decisions based on expediency, the fashionable ideas of the moment - are right on top of the pile, ready to be displayed in bright after-dinner conversation. But the ideas that make up a man's philosophy of life are somewhere way down below.
Character | Conversation | Ideas | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Philosophy | Right |
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Subjectivity is the truth. By virtue of the relationship subsisting between the eternal truth and the existing individual, the paradox came into being. Let us now go further, let us suppose that the eternal essential truth is itself a paradox. How does the paradox come into being? By putting the eternal essential truth into juxtaposition with existence. Hence when we posit such a conjunction with the truth itself, the truth becomes a paradox. The eternal truth has come into being in time: this is the paradox.
Character | Eternal | Existence | Individual | Paradox | Relationship | Time | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |
The truth of not-knowing is the only factor from which one can move. The truth of that is stable. A mind that does not know is in a state of learning. The moment I say I have learned, I have stopped learning and that stopping is the stability of division.
Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ
No man should think that peace comes easily. Peace does not come by merely wanting it, or shouting for it, or marching down Main Street for it. Peace is built brick by brick, mortared by the stubborn effort and the total energy and imagination of able and dedicated men. And it is built in the living faith that, in the end, man can and will master his own destiny.
Character | Destiny | Effort | Energy | Faith | Imagination | Man | Men | Peace | Will | Wisdom | Think |
Ivan Kozlof, fully Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov
Money is a bottomless sea, in which honor, conscience, and truth may be drowned.
Character | Conscience | Honor | Money | Truth |