This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We do not honor the fathers by going back to the place where they stopped but by going on toward the things their vision foresaw.
Science provides a vision of reality seen from the perspective of reason, a perspective that sees the vast order of the universe, living and nonliving matter, as a material system governed by rules that can be known by the human mind. It is a powerful vision, formal and austere but strangely silent about many of the questions that deeply concern us. Science shows us what exists but not what to do about it.
Mind | Order | Reality | Reason | Science | System | Universe | Vision | Wisdom |
Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL
One cannot have faith without optimism. Faith and hope are inseparable. Depression is a great obstacle in the spiritual life and we must strive to conquer it... Cheerfulness is one of the essential spiritual qualities we must guard ourselves against dejection, self-denunciation, or even feeling a little down-hearted... Dejection invariably distorts our vision - it magnifies our troubles.
Cheerfulness | Dejection | Depression | Faith | Hope | Life | Life | Little | Optimism | Qualities | Self | Troubles | Vision | Wisdom | Obstacle |
Margaret Oliphant, fully Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant, née Margaret Oliphant Wilson
All perfection is melancholy.
Melancholy | Perfection | Wisdom |
Business is founded on vision and confidence; success on industry and cooperation.
Business | Confidence | Cooperation | Industry | Success | Vision | Wisdom |
Beauty of form affects the mind, but then it must not be the mere shell that we admire, but the thought that this shell is only the beautiful case adjusted to the shape and value of a still more beautiful pearl within. The perfection of outward loveliness is the soul shining through its crystalline covering.
Beauty | Mind | Perfection | Soul | Thought | Wisdom | Thought | Value |
The golden thread in the mind of man is the light that leads towards excellence as a human objective. If perfection is a divine attribute, excellence is a human incentive and a healthy aim, even when we fall short of the target.
Excellence | Light | Man | Mind | Perfection | Wisdom | Excellence |
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
We are not speaking of the perfection of life, forces, and forms as increasing or decreasing according to the degrees of extension or continuity, because these degrees are generally known; but as ascending or descending according to the degrees of ascent, or discrete (discontinuous) degrees, can be but little known from things visible in the natural world.
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
The end is the source of everything that exists in the cause and the end of everything that exists in the effect... end, cause and effect, exist in the greatest and least things... To think from ends is the method of wisdom, from causes that of intelligence, and from effects that of knowledge. From this it may be seen that all perfection increases in and according to the ascent to higher degrees.
Cause | Ends | Intelligence | Knowledge | Method | Perfection | Wisdom | Think |
Symeon the New Theologian, fully Saint Symeon the New Theologian NULL
When a man walks into the sea up to his knees or waist, he can see the water all around him. But when he dives into the water, he can no longer see anything outside, and he knows only that his whole body is in the water. This is what happens to those who plunge into the vision of God.
E. B. White, fully Elwyn Brooks White
I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to se beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television - of that I am quite sure.
Opportunity | Peace | Television | Vision | Wisdom | World |
It is by insisting on an impossible standard of perfection that sceptics make themselves secure.
History tells us that the pendulum of time is sweeping to extremes of subjectivism, to cults of selfishness and savage irresponsibility. We must bring it back to balance by taking up the burdens of mankind as our own, with an entirely new vision and confidence. And we must do this perhaps as a condition for continued existence itself.
Balance | Confidence | Existence | History | Mankind | Selfishness | Time | Vision |
All things, by desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself; inasmuch as the perfection of all things are so many similitudes of the divine essence.
Desire | God | Perfection | God |