This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
Memories, thoughts and feelings are all shaped by how we use it. And it is an energy under our control, to do with as we please; hence, attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.
Attention | Control | Energy | Experience | Feelings | Important |
Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principle reason why men are so often useless is, that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.
To one who pays attention to God’s immensity, it is clear that nothing at all can exist which does not depend on Him. This is true not only of everything that subsists, but of all order, of every law, and of every reason of truth and goodness... Hence, neither should we think that eternal truths depend upon the human understanding or on other existing things; they must depend on God alone, who as the supreme legislator, ordained them from all eternity.
Attention | Eternal | Eternity | God | Law | Nothing | Order | Reason | Truth | Understanding | God | Think | Truths |
Intimacy - the willing revelation of self and absorption in another is a rare thing... those who do tend to view it as a fait accompli rather than as a communal being in need of constant renewal... True intimacy is a human constant... Intimacy is to love what concentration is to work: a simultaneous drawing together of attention and release of energy.
Attention | Energy | Love | Need | Revelation | Self | Work |
Benjamin Collins Brodie, fully Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
Our minds are so constructed that we can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked all around it; and the mind that possesses this faculty in the highest degree of perfection will take cognizance of relations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference between the minds of different individuals. This is the history alike of the poetic genius and of the genius of discovery in science. “I keep the subject,” said Sir Isaac Newton, “constantly before me, and wait until the dawnings open by little and little into a full light.” It was thus that after long meditation he was led to the invention of fluxions, and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, and that those views were suggested by Davy which laid the foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which terminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies.
Abstract | Age | Ambition | Anticipation | Attention | Contentment | Death | Discovery | Disease | Ennui | Failure | Genius | History | Indolence | Intelligence | Invention | Little | Meditation | Men | Mind | Object | Old age | Perfection | Power | Will | Discovery |
Isaac Newton, fully Sir Isaac Newton
If I have made any improvement in the sciences (any valuable discoveries) , it is owing more to patient attention than to anything beside.
Attention | Improvement |
The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.
Isaac Newton, fully Sir Isaac Newton
If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.
T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now history has many cunning passages, contrived corridors and issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, guides us by vanities. Think now she gives when our attention is distracted and what she gives, gives with such supple confusions that the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late what’s not believed in, or if still believed, in memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with till the refusal propagates a fear. Think neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism. Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes. These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
Attention | Courage | Cunning | Fear | Forgiveness | Giving | History | Knowledge | Memory | Tears | Thought | Think | Thought |
Suffering forces our attention toward places we would normally neglect.
We should be inclined to pay more attention to the wisdom of the old, if they showed greater indulgence to the follies of the young.
Attention | Indulgence | Wisdom |
Growing old is one of the ways the soul nudges itself into attention to the spiritual aspect of life. The body's changes teach us about fate, time, nature, mortality, and character. Aging forces us to decide what is important in life.
Attention | Body | Character | Fate | Important | Life | Life | Nature | Soul | Teach | Time | Old |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in democracies are therefore constantly haunted by the desire of obtaining wealth, and they naturally turn their attention to trade and manufactures, which appear to offer the readiest and most efficient means of success. In this respect they share the instincts of the poor without feeling the same necessities; say, rather, they feel the most imperious of all necessities, that of not sinking in the world.
Attention | Desire | Father | Fortune | Man | Means | Men | Respect | Success | Wealth | Will | World | Respect |
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never languishes; his mind is always before his words; his memory has all its stock so turned into ready money that, without hesitation or delay, it supplies whatever the occasion may require.
Attention | Better | Delay | Invention | Memory | Mind | Money | Words |
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
Americans continue to suffer from a notoriously short attention span. They get mad as hell with reasonable frequency, but quickly return to their families and sitcoms. Meanwhile, the corporate lobbies stay right where they are, outlasting all the populist hysteria.