This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.
Books | Education | Important | Learning | Mind | Need | Training | Learn | Think | Value |
We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guild or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
Beauty | Compassion | Despair | Dogma | Faith | Fear | Hope | Ignorance | Joy | Learning | Love | Optimism | Pessimism | Reason | Selfishness | Sin | Truth | Beauty |
Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
Once you have learned how to ask questions - relevant and appropriate and substantial questions - you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.
The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.
We underrate our brains and our intelligence. Education has become such a complicated and overregulated activity that learning is regarded as something difficult that the brain would rather not do... But reluctance to learning cannot be attributed to the brain. Learning is one of the brain's primary functions, its constant concern, and we become restless and frustrated if there is no learning to be done. We are all capable of high and unsuspected learning accomplishments without effort.
Education | Effort | Intelligence | Learning |
The Ten Commandments, and religious principles in general, simply tell you what to do. Learning to think morally (i.e., philosophically) helps you to discover both what to do, and why.
Learning | Principles | Think |
Neither comprehension nor learning can take place in an atmosphere of anxiety.
Happiness is an attitude, a perception, an interpretation. It is not a commodity, waiting to be purchased and appropriated. It is a way of living that is loving, open, flexible, and respectful of what life offers, regardless of expectations.
Life | Life | Perception | Waiting |