This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Whatever is found what is called a paternal government was found a State education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience [is] to commence tyranny in the nursery.
Education | Government | Obedience | Tyranny | Government |
For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions, according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that pint which ought to be our ultimate end.
Death | Eternal | Eternity | Judgment | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | Truth |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The value of philosophy is to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. He who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thought and free them from the tyranny of custom.
Age | Common Sense | Convictions | Cooperation | Custom | Life | Life | Mind | Philosophy | Problems | Reason | Sense | Thought | Tyranny | Uncertainty | Thought | Value |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Thought is free when it is exposed to free competition among beliefs, i.e., when all beliefs are able to state their case, and no legal or pecuniary advantages or disadvantages attach to beliefs.
Competition | Thought |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
There is a constant relation between the state of the universe at any instant and the rate of change in the rate at which any part of the universe is changing at that instant, and this relation is man-one, i.e., such that the rate of change in the rate of change is determinate when the state of the universe I given. If the ‘law of causality’ is to be something actually discoverable in the practice of science, the above proposition has a better right to the name than any ‘law of causality’ to be found in the books of philosophers.
Better | Books | Change | Law | Man | Practice | Right | Science | Universe |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The State is a collection of officials… drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and of the power of the bureaucrats.
Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
Minds, like bodies will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.
Good temper is the most contented, the most comfortable state of the soul; the greatest happiness both for those who possess it, and for those who feel its influence. With "gentleness" in his own character, "comfort" in his house, and "good temper" in his wife, the earthly felicity of man is complete... Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim.
Character | Comfort | Gentleness | Good | Influence | Man | Soul | Temper | Wife | Happiness |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Cultivate unity. You do your hearing, not with your ears, but with your mind; not with your mind, but with your very soul. But let the hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only Tao can abide. And the negative state is the fasting of the heart.
The development of the Observer can allow a person considerable access to observing different identity states, and an outside observer may often clearly infer different identity states, but a person himself who has not developed the Observer function very well may never notice the many transitions from one identity state to another.
Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broks is just a temporary condition.
Mind |
Your ‘personal’ life cannot have a lasting intrinsic meaning. It can acquire a contingent meaning, but only by being fitted into and subordinated to something which ‘lasts’ and has a meaning in itself. Is this something what we attempt to identify when we speak of ‘Life’? Can your life have a meaning as a tiny fragment of life? Does Life exist? Seek and you shall find, experience Life as reality. Has Life a ‘meaning’? Experience Life as reality and the question becomes meaningless. Seek - ? Seek by daring to take the leap into unconditional obedience. Dare this when you are challenged, for only by the light of a challenge will you be able to see the cross-roads and, in full awareness of your choice, turn your back upon your personal life - with no right ever to look back. You will find that ‘in the pattern’ you are liberated from the need to live ‘with the herd’. You will find that, thus subordinated, your life will receive from Life all its meaning, irrespective of the conditions given you for its realization. You will find that the freedom of the continual farewell, the hourly self-surrender, gives to your experience of reality the purity and clarity which signify - seal-realization. You will find that obedience requires an act of will which must continually be re-iterated, and that you will fail, if anything in your personal life is allowed to slip back into the center.
Awareness | Challenge | Choice | Daring | Experience | Freedom | Life | Life | Light | Meaning | Need | Obedience | Purity | Question | Reality | Receive | Right | Self | Surrender | Will | Awareness |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
When the state is most corrupt, then laws are most multiplied.
It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.
Men | Moderation | Nature | Success | Thinking | Tyranny | Moderation | Learn |