This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
No one was ever the better for advice: in general, what we called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdom at another’s expense; and to receive advice was little better than tamely to afford another the occasion of raising himself a character from our defects.
Advice | Better | Character | Defects | Giving | Little | Receive | Wisdom |
George Augustus Sala, fully George Augustus Henry Sala
Thought engenders thought. Place one idea upon paper, another will follow it, and still another, until you have written a page. You cannot fathom your mind. It is a well of thought which has no bottom. The more you draw from it, the more clear and fruitful will it be. If you neglect to think yourself, and use other people's thoughts, giving them utterance only, you will never know what you are capable of. At first your ideas may come out in lumps, homely and shapeless; but no matter; time and perseverance will arrange and polish them. Learn to think, and you will learn to write; the more you think, the better you will express your ideas.
Better | Giving | Ideas | Mind | Neglect | People | Perseverance | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | Learn | Think | Thought |
Perception is based, to a very large extent, on conceptual models - which are always inadequate, often incomplete and sometimes profoundly wrong. This complex situation arose because signals from the environment itself can be inadequate. The sort of information we need is not always available. And so, knowledge from the past, mixed up with assumptions about that knowledge which may be more or less appropriate, are used to augment information provided by the senses. Which means that our perception of any situation depends only partly on sensory signals being received at that time. And it is only a very short step from there, to perception which occurs in the absence of all immediate signals and has to be labeled “extrasensory”.
Absence | Knowledge | Means | Need | Past | Perception | Time | Wisdom | Wrong |
E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson
Nothing comes harder than original thought. Even the most gifted scientist spends only a tiny fraction of his waking hours doing it, probably less than one tenth of one percent. the rest of the time his mind hugs the coast of the known, reworking old information, adding lesser data, giving reluctant attention to the ideas of others (what use can I make of them?), warming lazily to the memory of successful experiments, and looking for a problem - always looking for a problem, something that can be accomplished, that will lead somewhere, anywhere.
Attention | Giving | Ideas | Memory | Mind | Nothing | Rest | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | Old |
Purpose is about developing relationships. Purpose is about bringing attention and intention into the present moment, moving ahead with new ideas, giving and receiving support, volunteering, mentoring, listening to the imagination and intuition, communicating, taking action based on inner direction and hints from the external, being adaptable, taking responsibility and ending the victim stance forever surrendering to the divine will and working with the lessons developing fluidity, tolerance, compassion, and the ability to love.
Ability | Action | Attention | Compassion | Giving | Ideas | Imagination | Intention | Intuition | Listening | Love | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Will | Victim |
Most people accept life scripts from the environment (family, society) into which they have grown. However, there is always the opportunity to write a new script.
Giordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno
There is one Mind. It is absolutely omnipresent, giving mentality to all things.
Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Technology has wiped out the frontiers that formerly separated men, countries and peoples. Man has become a citizen of the world. Thus, modern man finds himself in an environment without spiritual unity or religious homogeneity.
Man | Men | Technology | Unity | World |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Circumstances | Giving | Man | Men |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing; the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way.
Circumstances | Giving |
[The] great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.