This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in the punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
Good | Government | Health | Little | Observation | People | Punishment | Rebellion | Rights | Sound | Truth | Wisdom | World |
The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
Lawrence A. Kimpton, fully Lawrence Alpheus Kimpton
Much of truth is found upon the battlefield of controversy, and it is kept alive by sharp exchanges.
Controversy | Truth | Wisdom |
Truth is not to be known. What is known is a thing of the past; it is already dead. Truth is living, not static; therefore you cannot know truth. Truth is a constant movement, it has not abode, a mind that is tethered to a belief, to knowledge, to a particular conditioning, is incapable of understanding what truth is.
Belief | Knowledge | Mind | Past | Truth | Understanding | Wisdom |
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
If subjectivity is the truth, the conceptual account of truth must include an expression of the antithesis to objectivity, a mark of the fork in the road where the way swings off; that expression will serve at the same time to indicate the tension of the subjective inwardness. Here is such a definition of truth: the truth is an objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation process of the most passionate inwardness, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual.
Antithesis | Individual | Objectivity | Time | Truth | Uncertainty | Will | Wisdom |
Our recognition and apprehension of the highest truth is essentially an affair of the heart, far more than of the head.
R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing
The truth brings with it a great measure of absolution, always.
Absolution | Truth | Wisdom |
He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without hilt.