This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Liberty is one of the best of all sublunary advantages. I would willingly therefore communicate knowledge, without infringing, or with as little possible violence to, the volition and individual judgment of the person to be instructed.
Accident | Consideration | Contradiction | Control | Experiment | Father | Indulgence | Little | Man | Means | Mind | Nothing | Passion | Persuasion | Power | Trust | Will | Happiness |
The first duty of man is to take none of the principles of conduct upon trust; to do nothing without a clear and individual conviction that it is right to be done.
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
Lord, for the erring thought not into evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will betrayed and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept.
However inadequate our ideas of causal efficacy may be, we are less wide of the mark when we say that our ideas and feelings have it, than the Automatists are when they say they haven’t it. As in the night all cats are gray, so in the darkness of metaphysical criticism all causes are obscure. But one has no right to pull the pall over the psychic half of the subject only . . . whilst in the same breath one dogmatizes about material causation as if Hume, Kant, and Lotze had never been born.
Abstract | Individuality | Majority | Space |
William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
I would employ the word noetic to express all those cognitions which originate in the mind itself.
Meaning | Understanding | Intellect |
Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
Dynamic | Life | Life | Occupation |
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments... I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' respectively.
The war-party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirming that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. Patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only specifications of a more general competitive passion. They are its first form, but that is no reason for supposing them to be its last form. Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection. But who can be sure that other aspects of one's country may not, with time and education and suggestion enough, come to be regarded with similarly effective feelings of pride and shame? Why should men not someday feel that is it worth a blood-tax to belong to a collectivity superior in any respect? Why should they not blush with indignant shame if the community that owns them is vile in any way whatsoever? Individuals, daily more numerous, now feel this civic passion. It is only a question of blowing on the spark until the whole population gets incandescent, and on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a stable system of morals of civic honor builds itself up. What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may someday seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
Better | Feelings | Glory | Ideals | Nations | Politics | Shame | War | Vicissitudes |
You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them -- especially at such times as they are not inconvenient to your state or temper or occurrences in life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it.
Evil | God | Good | Love | Nature | Nothing | Reason | Revenge | Sin | Temper | Vengeance | Work | God |
A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character.
And what do ye say then? — that spring long departed has brought forth no child to the softness and showers; — that we slept and we dreamed through the summer of flowers; we dreamed of the winter, and waking dead-hearted found winter upon us and waste of dull hours.
Noble the house was, nor seemed built for war, but rather like the work of other days, when men, in better peace than now they are, had leisure on the world around to gaze, and noted well the past times' changing ways; and fair with sculptured stories it was wrought, by lapse of time unto dim ruin brought.
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
The Saab seethed off into the night. Arthur watched it go, as stunned as a man might be who, having believed himself to be totally blind for five years, suddenly discovers that he had merely been wearing too large a hat.
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
The truth of the matter is, that most English people don't know how to make tea anymore either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants.
We have more indolence in the mind than in the body.
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
Ability |
It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.