This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent of opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point.
Appetite | Desire | Good | Object | Opinion | Thinking | Thought | Thought |
A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and it is nature's best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.
Business | Good | Memory | Nature | Nothing | People | Receive | Rest | Smile | Will | Happiness | Value |
Peace, Rest and Bliss dwell only where there is no where and no when.
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
The regular social progress though which a growing society advances from one stage in its growth to another is a compound movement in which a creative individual or minority first withdraws from the common life of the society, then works out, in seclusion, a solution for some problem with which the society as a whole is confronted, and finally re-enters into communion with the rest of society in order to help it forward on its road by imparting to it the results of the creative work which the temporarily secluded individual or minority has accomplished during the interval between withdrawal and return.
Growth | Individual | Life | Life | Order | Progress | Rest | Seclusion | Society | Work | Society |
One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him. The disposition of the first is subjective, of the second objective. The one is, in the whole of his existence, more in the nature of an idea which is merely presented, the other more of the being who presents it.
What roots are to a tree, belief is to the soul. Great oak trees have great roots. Great souls have great faith. However, the faith that holds has spiritual qualities. The stable man has that intangible confidence in himself with capacities to be and to do, a recognition of God who may transform and empower his life, and a determined effort to realize man's highest ideals.
Belief | Confidence | Effort | Faith | God | Ideals | Life | Life | Man | Qualities | Soul | God |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Suffering is the essence of life, because it is the inevitable product of an unresolved tension between a living creature’s essential impulse to try to make itself into the centre of the Universe and its essential dependence on the rest of Creation and on the Absolute Reality.
Absolute | Dependence | Impulse | Inevitable | Life | Life | Reality | Rest | Suffering | Universe |
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness… It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature – and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give it meaning – and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are of no concern of mine; it is not me or “The Fountainhead” that they will betray: it is their own souls.
Courage | Greatness | Man | Meaning | Reality | Rest | Will | World |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Love, children, and work are the great sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world.
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
In this world, aspirants may find enlightenment by two different paths. For the contemplative is the path of knowledge: for the active is the path of selfless action. Nobody can become perfect by merely ceasing to act. In fact, nobody can ever rest from his activity even for a moment.
Action | Enlightenment | Knowledge | Rest | World |
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
Affection and aversion for the objects of sense abide in the senses; let none come under the dominion of these two; they are obstructers of the path.
Sense |
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
He whose heart is unattached to objects of the senses, findeth that within which is very bliss; he who resteth in identity with the One Supreme, enjoyeth bliss eternal.