This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Romanticism is the expression of man's urge to rise above reason and common sense, just as rationalism is the expression of his urge to rise above theology and emotion.
E. B. White, fully Elwyn Brooks White
Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: it presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one's belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place which is strange, remote.
Reason | Self | Self-sufficiency | Superiority | Wisdom |
Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
Whosoever grows wrathful for any reason against his sufferings has therein departed from the way of the just, because he may not doubt that these things have happened to him by divine dispensation.
The attraction of one creature for another, even when condemned by reason for its passionate origin, is always worthy of respect, because it reveals to us something of the order of creation.
The universal and the transcendent Cause of all things is neither without life, nor without reason and intelligence; nor is he a body, nor has he form or shape, quality, quantity or weight; nor has he any localized, visible or tangible existence… He suffers no change, corruption, division, privation or flux; none of these things can either be identified with or attributed to him.
Body | Cause | Change | Corruption | Existence | Intelligence | Life | Life | Reason |