This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Need is a low door which, when we must by stern necessity pass through, forces the greatest to bend down the most.
Courage | Perseverance |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being. We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill. It is only thus that we evoke his will to meaning from its state of latency. I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology homeostasis, i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Body | Cause | Courage | Death | Hope | Mind | Will | Loss | Understand |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual’s value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler’s program, that is to say, ‘mercy’ killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.
If we are good to people then we are reciprocated in the same manner but if we are bad to them then we will most obviously be paid in the same coin.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it's simply meaningless. We don't live in order to die, we live in order to live.
Argument | Chance | Courage | Fighting | Kill | Man | Manliness | Men | Need | Organization | People | Purpose | Purpose | Worth | Old | Think |
An amalgamation of cultures is taking place. I see it as proof that something is happening, something is being born, that we are in a phase when one age is succeeding another, when everything is possible. Yes, everything is possible, because our civilization does not have its own unified style, its own spirit, its own aesthetic.
Courage |
There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.
Ability | Absurd | Awareness | Courage | Good | Gratitude | Irony | Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility | Sense | Vigilance | Awareness |
As against having beautiful workshops, studios, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day.
There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance. Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity, both in others and in ourselves. A good mind. A modest certainty about the meaning of things. Gratitude for the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it. Vigilance of spirit.
Ability | Absurd | Courage | Good | Gratitude | Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility | Sense | Sensibility |
Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.
Courage | Man | Platitudes |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The generosity of others suffer sore, as if she was responsible.
Circumstances | Courage | Men | Practice | Speculation |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The world is a great dance where everyone is masked.
Courage |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.
Courage |
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.