This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that your car engine is driven by psychokinetic energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine. Telepathy and possession by the spirits of the dead are not ruled out as a matter of principle. There is certainly nothing impossible about abduction by aliens in UFOs. One day it may be happen. But on grounds of probability it should be kept as an explanation of last resort. It is unparsimonious, demanding more than routinely weak evidence before we should believe it. If you hear hooves clip-clopping down a London street, it could be a zebra or even a unicorn, but, before we assume that it's anything other than a horse, we should demand a certain minimal standard of evidence.
Day | Evidence | Hypothesis | Looks | Nothing |
The world looks at preachers out of church to know what they mean in it.
Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate and predictable range; it is a manipulative, adjustive, unfailingly practical quality--one of the most eminent and endearing of the animal virtues. Intelligence works within the framework of limited but clearly stated goals, and may be quick to shear away questions of thought that do not seem to help in reaching them. Finally, it is of such universal use that it can daily be seen at work and admired alike by simple or complex minds. Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole.
Excellence | Intelligence | Looks | Meaning | Mind | Thought | Will | Work | Excellence | Intellect | Thought |
Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon
All lasting change is incremented, based on unfolding traditions and developing institutions. Revolutionary upheavals may change how the world looks but seldom changes the way the world works. Lasting historical change comes not through tidal waves but through the irresistible creeping tide.
Rinzai, aka Lin- Chi Yi-Sen, Lin-chi I-hsuan, Rinzai Gigen, Venerable Master Lin Chi NULL
There are disciples who, being in chains, visit a teacher who then gives them yet another chain. The disciples, unable to differentiate, are delighted. That is called: A guest looks at another one.
Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley
Consider the number of young people all over the world who are getting married, day in and day out, for no other reason than that someone of the opposite sex looks well in a green jersey or sings baritone, and then tell me that divorce has reached menacing proportions. The surface of divorce has not even been scratched yet.
It is only through your conscious mind that you can reach the subconscious. Your conscious mind is the porter at the door, the watchman at the gate. It is to the conscious mind that the subconscious looks for all its impressions.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
LOVE'S SERVILE LOT - LOVE, mistress is of many minds, Yet few know whom they serve ; They reckon least how little Love Their service doth deserve. The will she robbeth from the wit, The sense from reason's lore ; She is delightful in the rind, Corrupted in the core. She shroudeth vice in virtue's veil, Pretending good in ill ; She offereth joy, affordeth grief, A kiss where she doth kill. A honey-shower rains from her lips, Sweet lights shine in her face ; She hath the blush of virgin mind, The mind of viper's race. She makes thee seek, yet fear to find To find, but not enjoy : In many frowns some gliding smiles She yields to more annoy. She woos thee to come near her fire, Yet doth she draw it from thee ; Far off she makes thy heart to fry, And yet to freeze within thee. She letteth fall some luring baits For fools to gather up ; Too sweet, too sour, to every taste She tempereth her cup. Soft souls she binds in tender twist, Small flies in spinner's web ; She sets afloat some luring streams, But makes them soon to ebb. Her watery eyes have burning force ; Her floods and flames conspire : Tears kindle sparks, sobs fuel are, And sighs do blow her fire. May never was the month of love, For May is full of flowers ; But rather April, wet by kind, For love is full of showers. Like tyrant, cruel wounds she gives, Like surgeon, salve she lends ; But salve and sore have equal force, For death is both their ends. With soothing words enthralled souls She chains in servile bands ; Her eye in silence hath a speech Which eye best understands. Her little sweet hath many sours, Short hap immortal harms ; Her loving looks are murd'ring darts, Her song bewitching charms. Like winter rose and summer ice, Her joys are still untimely ; Before her Hope, behind Remorse : Fair first, in fine unseemly. Moods, passions, fancy's jealous fits Attend upon her train : She yieldeth rest without repose, And heaven in hellish pain. Her house is Sloth, her door Deceit, And slippery Hope her stairs ; Unbashful Boldness bids her guests, And every vice repairs. Her diet is of such delights As please till they be past ; But then the poison kills the heart That did entice the taste. Her sleep in sin doth end in wrath, Remorse rings her awake ; Death calls her up, Shame drives her out, Despairs her upshot make. Plough not the seas, sow not the sands, Leave off your idle pain ; Seek other mistress for your minds, Love's service is in vain.
Blush | Boldness | Death | Diet | Fear | Force | Good | Heart | Heaven | Hope | Little | Looks | Love | Mind | Pain | Past | Remorse | Rest | Sense | Service | Shame | Silence | Sin | Will | Words | Vice |
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . . It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now that’s a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know — but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It’s the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit, it’s so easy to quit. It’s the keeping-your chin-up that’s hard. It’s easy to cry that you're beaten — and die; It’s easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight — Why that’s the best game of them all! And though you come out of each gruelling bout, All broken and battered and scarred, Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die, It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
I am here tonight for the purpose of defending your right to differ with me. I want to convince you that you are under no compulsion to accept my creed; that you are, so far as I am concerned, absolutely free to follow the torch of your reason according to your conscience; and I believe that you are civilized to that degree that you will extend to me the right that you claim for yourselves. I admit, at the very threshold, that every human being thinks as he must; and the first proposition really is whether man has the right to think. It will bear but little discussion, for the reason that no man can control his thought. If you think you can, what are you going to think tomorrow? What are you going to think next year? If you can absolutely control your thought, can you stop thinking? The question is, has the will any power over the thought? What is thought? It is the result of nature--of the outer world--first upon the senses--those impressions left upon the brain as pictures of things in the outward world, and these pictures are transformed into, or produce thought; and as long as the doors of the senses are open, thoughts will be produced. Whoever looks at anything in nature, thinks. Whoever hears any sound--or any symphony--no matter what--thinks. Whoever looks upon the sea, or on a star, or on a flower, or on the face of a fellow-man, thinks, and the result of that look is an absolute necessity. The thought produced will depend upon your brain, upon your experience, upon the history of your life. One who looks upon the sea, knowing that the one he loved the best has been devoured by its hungry waves, will have certain thoughts; and he who sees it for the first time will have different thoughts. In other words, no two brains are alike; no two lives have been, or are, or ever will be the same. Consequently, nature cannot produce the same effect upon any two brains, or upon any two hearts. The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ--our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerce that we call conversation.
Absolute | Commerce | Control | History | Knowing | Little | Looks | Man | Nature | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Reason | Right | Thought | Time | Will | Commerce | Think | Thought |
Rinzai, aka Lin- Chi Yi-Sen, Lin-chi I-hsuan, Rinzai Gigen, Venerable Master Lin Chi NULL
There are disciples who, being in chains, visit a teacher who then gives them yet another chain. The disciples, unable to differentiate, are delighted. That is called: A guest looks at another one.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
The seven heavens cannot Thee enfold, Sustained by Thee, they do not Thee sustain. They hymn Thee since Thou madest them of old, And when they perish, Thou shalt still remain, O mighty God! The messengers of heaven Thee revere. They stand to praise Thee in Thine inmost shrine, Yet from beholding Thee they shrink in fear, For how behold the dazzling dread Divine? O Lord, my God! What voice is this that singeth without cease And spends in song to Thee its nights and days? But Thou, omnipotence beyond increase, Art high—I know—uplifted over praise, O Lord, my God! So great Thy majesty and manifold, How canst Thou lodge in tabernacle’s span? Such glory no circumference can hold, For Thou art vastly mightier than man, O Lord, my God! He at whose feet celestial creatures creep A day of liberation will proclaim, And from all corners call his scattered sheep, However sorry-looking they or lame, The Lord, my God!
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
THE MESSIAH - Lord, tell me when Shall come to men Messiah blest, When shall Thy care His couch prepare To be my guest, To sleep on my golden bed, in my palace rest. Wake, dear gazelle, Shake off thy spell, Nor slumber still. Dawn like a flag Surmounts the crag Of Tabor’s hill, And its flame it unfurls o’er my Hermon, the hoar and chill. From the wild-ass brood To the grace renewed Of Thy dainty roe, O Lord, return, For behold we yearn Our love to show, And our soul with Thy soul at one as of yore to know. Thrice welcome he Who comes to me Of David’s line, My palace treasure Is at his pleasure With all that’s mine, My pomegranate, cinnamon, spice, and the jars of my old sweet wine.
Art | Day | Enemy | Heart | Hope | Knowledge | Land | Light | Looks | Passion | Sacrifice | Sin | Soul | Spirit | Tears | Vengeance | Will | Wisdom | Work | Art | Child | Friends |
Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
Behold the cold days have already passed And the season of winter’s rains is buried. The young turtle-doves are seen in our land; They call to one another from the tips of branches. Therefore, my companions, keep the covenant Of friendship make haste and do not defy me. Come to my garden and pluck The roses whose perfume is like pure myrrh. And by the blossoms and gathering of swallows Who sing of the good times, drink ye Wine in measures like the tears I shed over parting With friends and as red as the faces of blushing lovers.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets tough.
Looks |
Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty.
Looks |
The place was packed as full of smells as a bale is of cotton.