This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
For we may ask in return, what has any secret purpose to do with our role of judgment and action? “Secret things,” we are told, “belong unto the Lord our God; but things which are revealed, unto us and to our children.” The question taken from the hidden purposes of the divine mind, can have no force whatever, because it is an appeal to our ignorance. We know, and can know nothing about them. One thing, however, we do know. God must be always and everywhere consistent with himself; and whether we can understand it or not, it is certain that there can be no inconsistency between revealed and unrevealed truths; and if God has made an offer of eternal life through the atonement unto all men, and commanded all men to embrace it, there cannot be in any purpose of God concerning its nature, anything which will clash with, and so contradict this universal offer.
Circumstances | Earth | God | Light | Means | Mistake | Nature | Necessity | Principles | System | Waste | Will | God | Guilty |
The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.
Culture |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator.
Mother |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.
Mother |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Mother |
We are trying to do a transfer of technology that allows people to express themselves without taking risks. It is about free speech, that's all.
Culture |
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
But some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint - like a heartbeat. And pure love why, some days it's so quiet, you don't even know it's there.
Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste
The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way."
The most worrisome smart-technology projects start from the assumption that designers know precisely how we should behave, so the only problem is finding the right incentive. A truly smart trash bin, by contrast, would make us reflect on our recycling habits and contribute to conscious deliberation—say, by letting us benchmark our usual recycling behavior against other people in our demographic, instead of trying to shame us with point deductions and peer pressure. There are many contexts in which smart technologies are unambiguously useful and even lifesaving. Smart belts that monitor the balance of the elderly and smart carpets that detect falls seem to fall in this category. The problem with many smart technologies is that their designers, in the quest to root out the imperfections of the human condition, seldom stop to ask how much frustration, failure and regret is required for happiness and achievement to retain any meaning. It's great when the things around us run smoothly, but it's even better when they don't do so by default. That, after all, is how we gain the space to make decisions—many of them undoubtedly wrongheaded—and, through trial and error, to mature into responsible adults, tolerant of compromise and complexity.
It was Plato who bridged the gap between poetry and philosophy; for, in his work, appearance, despised by his Eleatic and Sophist predecessors, became a reflected image of perfection. He set poets the task of writing philosophically, not only in the sense of giving instruction, but in the sense of striving, by the imitation of appearance, to arrive at its true essence and to show its insufficiency measured by the beauty of the Idea.
Character | Courage | Day | Destiny | God | Obedience | Rebellion | Soul | God |