This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man’s affections center in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it will end.
Attainment | Beginning | Character | Choice | Darkness | Desire | Evil | Feelings | Good | Heart | Light | Man | Means | Possessions | Right | Understanding | Will | Wrong | Zeal | Vice |
Our concepts of the empirical world are fundamentally controlled by the character of our perceptual experience and by the introspective access we enjoy to our own minds. Thus our concepts of consciousness are constrained by the specific form of our own consciousness, so that we cannot form concepts for quite alien forms of consciousness possessed by other actual and possible creatures. Similarly, our concepts of the body, including the brain, are constrained by the way we perceive these physical objects; we have, in particular, to conceive of them as spatial entities essentially similar to other physical objects in space... But now these two forms of conceptual closure operate to prevent us from arriving at concepts for the property or relation that intelligibly links consciousness to the brain. For, first, we cannot grasp other forms of consciousness, and so we cannot grasp the theory that explains these other forms: that theory must be general, but we must always be parochial in our conception of consciousness. It is as if we were trying for a general theory of light but only could grasp the visible part of the spectrum. And, second, it is precisely the perceptually controlled conception of the brain that we have which is so hopeless in making consciousness an intelligible result of brain activity. No property we can ascribe to the brain on the basis of how it strikes us perceptually, however inferential the ascription, can be the crucible from which subjective consciousness emerges fully formed. That is why the feeling is so strong in us that there has to be something magical about the mind-brain relation.
Body | Character | Consciousness | Experience | Light | Mind | Property | Space | Wisdom | World |
The contemplative life has nothing to tell you except to reassure you and say that if you dare to penetrate your own silence and dare to advance without fear into the solitude of your own heart... you will truly recover the light and capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanation because it is too close to be explained.
Capacity | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Light | Nothing | Silence | Solitude | Will | Words | Understand |
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. so do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
Beauty | Character | Labor | Light | Virtue | Virtue | Work | Beauty |
Fritz Perls, fully Friedrich "Fritz" (Frederick) Salomon Perls
Gestalt Prayer - I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.
Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances.
Character | Circumstances | Light | Practice |
The light of the understanding, humility kindleth and pride covereth.
Character | Humility | Light | Pride | Understanding |
The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living light on every page of our history, are these: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom; freedom, none but virtue; virtue, none but knowledge; and neither freedom nor virtue has any vigor or immortal hope except the principles of the Christian faith...
Character | Faith | Freedom | History | Hope | Knowledge | Light | Principles | Religion | Security | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |
Moshe Rosenstein, fully Moshe ben Chaim Rosenstein
What is the difference between mourning and sadness? Mourning takes hold of one’s heart, but not one’s mind, while sadness takes hold of the mind. Mourning leads to thinking, while sadness stops one’s thoughts. Mourning stems from the light in one’s soul, while sadness comes from the darkness of the soul. Mourning arouses one to life, while sadness brings to the opposite. The Torah obligates mourning when it is appropriate, while it forbids sadness and commands we serve the Almighty with joy.
Character | Darkness | Heart | Joy | Life | Life | Light | Mind | Mourning | Sadness | Soul | Thinking | Torah |
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Satchidananda, fully Swami Satchidananda, born C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder NULL
I would sit quietly for hours and hours in meditation, but nothing came to my heart. I didn’t feel or realize anything... Then I learned to pray for the sake of prayer and not for anything else. I would not be satisfied with anything but God. If our prayers are that sincere and our interest is only in God and nothing else, then God cannot sit quietly somewhere. He has to run to us. If we need help, it is always waiting. All we need to do is ask sincerely.
Character | God | Heart | Meditation | Need | Nothing | Prayer | Waiting | God |
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red light... The truly wise person is colorblind.
He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain a very poor creature, for riches are no proof of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glowworm's light reveals the grub.
Attention | Character | Light | Logic | Man | Riches | Worth | Riches |
We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.