This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling Kilroy was here on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.
Immortality | Life | Life | Looks | Man | Means | Oblivion | Will |
By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages.
Enthusiasm | Immortality | Influence | Knowledge | Mind | Nations | Power | Sentiment |
Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos
Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an after-life.
Creativity | Era | Immortality | Life | Life | Obsession | People |
If there is a God, man's immortality is certain. If not, Immortality would not be worth having.
Immortality | Worth |
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
To possess, is past the instant we achieve the joy - immortality contented were anomaly.
Immortality | Joy | Past |
The dynamo of our economic system is self-interest which may range from mere petty greed to admirable types of self-expression.
Greed | Self-interest | System |
You can believe in God without believing in immortality, but it is hard to see how anyone can believe in immortality and not believe in God.
God | Immortality | God |
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once. Moreover, there would be nothing immoral then, everything would be permitted.
Belief | Destroy | Force | Immortality | Life | Life | Love | Nothing | World |
When love and understanding wholly replace greed and fear, then the illusion of time is conquered.
Greed | Illusion | Love | Time | Understanding |
Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
As the twentieth century began, science equaled a materialistic worldview. As the twenty-first century began, the worldview of science, at least of physics and astronomy, may have traded place with that of religion. Consider Einstein's famous equation E = mc2. Nothing of matter dies but continues on in another form, elsewhere. The church divines and theologians for two thousand years have devised arguments and "proofs" of immortality but nothing equal to this.
Church | Famous | Immortality | Nothing | Science |
It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one's germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!
Children | Future | Immortality | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Wrong | Child |
If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.
The magic of listening brings us closer to the central core of the universe. To begin to comprehend the mystery of life it is not sufficient to touch and to see – we need to hear, to listen, and thus to unite heart and mind and soul. The softer the sound the more important it is that we perceive it. We have, I fear, become a deaf people, and the cries of pain of the flora and fauna around us, the very air we breathe, the suffering of our fellow human beings in our urban deserts, in parts of the globe we have subjected to war, to famine and flood through greed and selfishness, have become inaudible. The media encourages us to read, to view, to hear, but that does not mean we listen. Until we can create a still center within ourselves we will be unable to attune the “third ear” to the messages that are broadcast to us, loud and clear for the most part, but rendered futile due to our incapacity to listen.
Greed | Heart | Important | Life | Life | Listening | Magic | Mind | Mystery | Need | Pain | Sound | Suffering | Will |
Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try,no hell below us, above us only sky,imagine all the people, living for today. Imagine there's no countries,it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too,imagine all the people, living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one,I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one. Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man, imagine all the people, sharing all the world. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
Brotherhood | Greed | Hell | Hope | Kill | Life | Life | Need | Nothing | Religion | Will | Wonder | World |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.
Capitalism | Greed | Organization | Will |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John L. Lewis, fully John Llewellyn Lewis
The organization and constant onward sweep of this movement exemplifies the resentment of the many toward the selfishness, greed and the neglect of the few.
Greed | Neglect | Organization | Resentment |