This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time " - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"In particular, [my mother] had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to ? or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the hand of God wrote that number, and we don't know how He pushed his pencil. We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!" - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"On the contrary, God was always invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time" - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"One does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately obtain an understanding of anything much." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"We always had a great deal of difficulty in understanding the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because I'm an old enough man that I haven't got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me ... It has not yet become obvious to me that there is no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there is no real problem, but I'm not sure there is no real problem." - Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
"Marriage requires the giving and keeping of confidences, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, respect and understanding always, marriage requires humility - the humility to repent, the humility to forgive. Marriage requires flexibility (to give and take) and firmness: not to compromise principles. And a wise and moderate sense of humor. Both need to be pulling together in the same direction." - Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
"Just as America's role is indispensable in preserving the world's peace, so is each nation's role indispensable in preserving its own peace. Together with the rest of the world, let us resolve to move forward from the beginnings we have made. Let us continue to bring down the walls of hostility which have divided the world for too long, and to build in their place bridges of understanding " - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people, but the peace that comes with healing in its wings; with compassion for those who have suffered; with understanding for those who have opposed us; with the opportunity for all the peoples of this earth to choose their own destiny." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
"Art lies in understanding some part of the dark forces and bringing them under the direction of reason." - Robertson Davies
"If people need a book to tell them that in marriage kindness and forbearance are necessary, and that the sexual act is happier when it is undertaken to give pleasure as well as to receive it, these books are what they want. Possibly people so lacking in understanding of themselves and others do not mind being addressed in the coarse, grainy prose of the marriage counselor." - Robertson Davies
"Marriage is a framework to preserve friendship. It is valuable because it gives much more room to develop than just living together. It provides a base from which a person can work at understanding himself and another person." - Robertson Davies
"Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Yet when it rules in the name of the Constitution, whether it rules truly or not, the Court is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy. The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
"Without adherence to the original understanding, even the actual Bill of Rights could be pared or eliminated. It is asserted nonetheless, and sometimes on high authority, that the judicial philosophy of original understanding is fatally defective in any number of respects." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
"It is my intent to beget a good understanding between the chymists and the mechanical philosophers who have hitherto been too little acquainted with one another's learning." - Robert Boyle
"There is an attitude towards life, a way of looking at things, a way of thinking that all of these people that I have been studying they all share this way of looking at the world. It is what I call radical realism. And the reason I call it radical is, realism has this idea of just understanding the world and it sort of has a cynical, sometimes an edge to it. I want the idea of really, deeply understanding what life is about, how people operate in this world. And not only being realistic and understanding it, but accepting in a very deep way that this is what the world is like and actually loving it and embracing it and working with reality." - Robert Greene
"The song Of Heaven is ever new; for daily thus, And nightly, new discoveries are made Of God's unbounded wisdom, power, and love, Which give the understanding larger room, And swell the hymn with ever-growing praise. " - Robert Pollok
"Thou art One, the first of every number, and the foundation of every structure, Thou art One, and at the mystery of Thy Oneness the wise of heart are struck dumb, For they know not what it is. Thou art One, and Thy Oneness can neither be increased nor lessened, It lacketh naught, nor doth aught remain over. Thou art One, but not like a unit to be grasped or counted, For number and change cannot reach Thee. Thou art not to be visioned, nor to be figured thus or thus. Thou art One, but to put to Thee bound or circumference my imagination would fail me. Therefore I have said I will guard my ways lest I sin with the tongue. Thou art One, Thou art high and exalted beyond abasement or falling, "For how should the One fall?"" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"We believe being afflicted by the death of a person , when it is the dead one that makes printing on us." - Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan
"Saying that spiritual practices train our minds, shape our consciousness and mold our character can sum this up. We undertake spiritual practice in order to change in some way, even if it is only a change of perspective. In more traditional language we undertake spiritual practices because they bring us closer to God’s will. How does this work? Spiritual practices including meditation (whether the object of attention is set at the breath, bodily sensations, a visualization, a mantra, a prayer or at floating open attention), and mitzvoth like Shabbat, Kashrut, and Torah study, and conscious non-harming speech share a similar technology. One commits to a particular action as the focus of one’s energy, attention, time, and behavior. One articulates this intention. Then one waits. Soon, the obstacles appear. In a sitting meditation practice we may intend to follow each in breath and each out breath. No sooner do we begin then thoughts rush in or we find ourselves nodding sleepily or in a state of anxiety regarding the pain in our knee or lower back. Or we have decided to observe the Sabbath and an invitation comes our way that is irresistible. Or we promise ourselves to observe kashruth and a strong desire arises to taste the forbidden. Often rationalizing thoughts obscuring the clarity of the original intention surround these temptations. The training occurs in the next step, the step of renunciation or returning. We see the temptation. We acknowledge it in a non-judgmental and non-personal way realizing that we are seeing forgetfulness in the human mind. As we bring attention to the temptation we see that it has no substance. Each time we do this, the ability to choose is strengthened. Each time we return from distraction or obstacle, the power of habit and unconsciousness is weakened. In this process we begin to see the nature of our minds and the nature of reality itself. We increase our ability to pay attention. And what do we begin to notice? We observe the arising and passing away of thoughts, sensations, sounds, desires, feelings, and moods just as daylight passes and evening comes. We see the consequences of various forms of contraction in the mind or body like fear, desire, suppression, judgment, anger, and aggression. We see the consequences of various forms of expansion like, trust, ease, relaxation, acceptance, generosity and gratitude." - Sheila Peltz Weinberg
"In raising and instructing our children, in providing personal and compassionate care for the elderly, in maintaining the spiritual strength of religious commitment among our people-- in these and other ways, America's families make immeasurable contributions to America's well-being. Today, more than ever, it is essential that these contributions not be taken for granted and that each of us remembers that the strength of our families is vital to the strength of our nation." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
"Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud." - Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"
"The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands." - Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"
"Goethe's thinking was mobile. It followed the whole growth process of the plant and followed how one plant form is a modification of the other. Goethe's thinking was not rigid with inflexible contours; it was a thinking in which the concepts continually metamorphose. Thereby his concepts became, if I may put it this way, intimately adapted to the process that plant nature itself goes through." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
"Intuition is for thinking what observation is for percept. Intuition and observation are the sources of our knowledge." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
"Those who judge human beings according to generic characteristics only reach the boundary, beyond which people begin to be beings whose activity is based on free self-determination....Characteristics of race, tribe, ethnic group and gender are subjects for special sciences....But all these sciences cannot penetrate through to the special nature of the individual. Where the realm of freedom of thought and action begin, the determination of individuals according to generic laws ends." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
"To supersensible perception there is no such thing as ‘unconsciousness’, only varying degrees of consciousness. Everything in the world is conscious…The actual essential nature of the ‘I’ is independent of anything external; therefore, nothing outside of it can call it by its name. Religious denominations that have consciously maintained their connection to the supersensible call the term ‘I’ the ‘ineffable name of God’. Because we only attained this individuated ego-based awareness in our recent development, the ‘I’ is still weaker than the other bodies we possess- the physical body, the astral body, the etheric body. Cravings and desires are constantly pouring into us through the astral body, and the goal of our present phase of evolution is to master those cravings, and the astral body itself, through the strengthening of the ‘I’, transmuting lower passions into higher energies. Fundamentally, all of our cultural activity and spiritual endeavors consist of work that aims for this mastery by the ‘I’. All human beings who are alive at present are involved in this work, whether or not they are conscious of it. The spirit self constitutes a higher element of our human makeup, one that is present in it in embryonic form, as it were, and emerges more and more in the course of working on ourselves." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
"Unless we first permeate ourselves with the realization that only through the artistic can we penetrate into the realm of truth, there can be no question of acquiring a real understanding of the supersensible world in accordance with the present age of the conscious soul." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
"We learn through all our experiences and they enrich our store of knowledge. But in order that man may learn on the Earth, he must be allured by, [or] involved in enjoyment." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
"For you [God] are infinite and never change. In you 'today' never comes to an end: and yet our 'today' does come to an end in you, because time, as well as everything else, exists in you. If it did not, it would have no means of passing. And since your years never come to an end, for you they are simply 'today'...But you yourself are eternally the same. In your 'today' you will make all that is to exist tomorrow and thereafter, and in your 'today' you have made all that existed yesterday and for ever before." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?" - Saint Bonaventure, born John of Fidanza Bonaventure
"For you, high eternal Father, loved me without being loved by me." - Saint Catherine of Siena NULL
"As God sets the soul in this dark night… He allows it not to find attraction or sweetness in anything whatsoever. God transfers to the spirit the good things and the strength of the senses… if it is not immediately conscious of spiritual sweetness and delight, but only of aridity and lack of sweetness, the reason for this is the strangeness of the exchange. #6. If those souls to whom this comes to pass knew how to be quiet at this time… then they would delicately experience this inward refreshment in that ease and freedom from care… it is like the air which, if one would close one’s hand upon it, escapes. In this state of contemplation… it is God Who is now working in the soul. He binds its interior faculties, and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. God communicates… by pure spirit. From this time forward imagination and fancy can find no support in any meditation." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"In passive joy the will finds itself rejoicing without any clear and direct understanding of the object of its joy." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"In remaining unattached, a person is unencumbered and free to love all rationally and spiritually, which is the way God wants him to love." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"No man of himself can succeed in voiding himself of all his desires in order to come to God." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"The first and principal benefit caused by the arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery. The soul learns to commune with God with more respect and more courtesy. God will enlighten the soul, giving it knowledge, not only of its lowliness and wretchedness, but of the greatness and excellence of God. He cleanses and frees the understanding that it may understand the truth. From the aridities and voids of this night of the desire, the soul draws spiritual humility. The soul is aware only of its own wretchedness – and esteems neighbors." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"The soul goes about the things of God with much greater freedom and satisfaction of the soul than before it entered the dark night of sense. It now very readily finds in its spirit the most serene and loving contemplation and spiritual sweetness without the labor of meditation. This sweetness overflows into their senses more than was usual… since the sense is now purer. But they also endure many frailties and sufferings and weaknesses of the stomach and are fatigued in spirit. After the second night of the spirit: no raptures and no torments of the body because their senses are now neither clouded nor transported." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"The soul went by a very secret ladder, which is living faith. In this purgative night the desires, affections and passions of the soul are put to sleep." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"This soul is so near to God that it is transformed in the flames of love, wherein Father, Son and Holy Spirit communicate themselves to it. The effect of the living flames is to make the soul live spiritually in God, and experience the life of God. Love is ever throwing out sparks; the effect of life is to wound, that it may enkindle with love and cause delight. God wars against all the imperfect habits of the soul and, purifying the soul with the heat of His flame, He uproots these habits from it and prepares it so that at last He may enter it and be united with it by His sweet, peaceful and glorious love, as is the fire when it has entered the wood. At death the rivers of love of the soul are about to enter the sea. Burning with sweetness. Consuming not but enlightening." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"You should strive in your prayer for a pure conscience, a will that is wholly with God, and a mind truly set upon Him." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
"Lord, teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me when I seek you. For I cannot seek you unless you first teach me, nor find you unless you first reveal yourself to me. Let me seek you in longing and long for you in seeking. Let me find you in love, and love you in finding." - Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
"All the good we do, we do for love of God, and the evil we avoid, we avoid for love of God." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL