This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
This world is by definition the place where God hides Himself. It contains His light, i.e., the knowledge of Him, in a hidden way. And the purpose of life is to discover God; or as the prophet says: “to fill the world with the knowledge of God.”
God | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Purpose | Purpose | World | God |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it.
Heaven is my Father, the earth my mother, and even a tiny creature such as myself finds an intimate place in their midst. In everything that moves throughout the universe, I see my own body, and in everything that governs the universe, my own soul. All men are my brethren, and all things my companions.
Body | Earth | Father | Heaven | Men | Mother | Soul | Universe |
Lu Xun, or Lu Hsün, pen name of Zhou Shuren
If there are still men who really want to live in this world, they should first dare to speak out, to laugh, to cry, to be angry, to accuse, to fight – that they may at least cleanse this accursed place of its accursed atmosphere!
To find a place in the budget for the eternal is not in the spirit of our age.
If there should be any [persons], who though ignorant in Mathematics, yet pretending a skill in those Learnings, should dare, upon the authority of some place of Scripture wrested to their purpose, to condemn and censure my Hypothesis, I value them not, but shall slight their inconsiderate judgment.
Authority | Censure | Hypothesis | Judgment | Mathematics | Purpose | Purpose | Scripture | Skill | Value |
Kenneth Eble, fully Kenneth Eugene Eble
If there is no place for pleasure in teaching, surely our Teaching has failed us altogether.
Pleasure |
Being As you become aware of your feelings, thoughts, and actions--and can observe them--you reach a most powerful place: the place of choice.
Discouragement tricks you into mentally or emotionally dwelling in the very place you want to leave.
The source of my obligation is the value I place on the relatedness of caring.
Obligation | 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 |
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
A man can't make a place for himself in the sun if he keeps taking refuge under the family tree.
It is erroneously believed that attention is attracted out of interest; actually our interests are more often determined by our own inner state, and we stay interested because we have learned to place our attention.
If you wish to know what a man is, place him in authority.
John Schaar, fully John Homer Schaar
The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination.
Future |
The tendency to form hierarchies shows itself in petty ways in corporations and bureaucracies, where people place enormous importance on how big their office is and how many windows it has. None of this shows that hierarchy is good, or desirable, or even inevitable; but it does show that getting rid of it is not going to be as easy as previous revolutionaries thought.
Good | Inevitable | Office | People | Thought |