This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
What indeed is finally beautiful except death and love?
Every unkindness to another is a little Death in the Divine Image; nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood.
Brotherhood | Death | Little | Man | Unkindness |
If we see life’s purpose as the achievement of future goals, several problems arise. If we are mortal, the problem is simply that there will come a time when we have no future. Life would end with meaning unfulfilled, since death would eventually rob us of the future where the purposes for our actions lie.
Achievement | Death | Future | Goals | Life | Life | Meaning | Mortal | Problems | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Will |
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
Just as life is defined as biological change and death as its lack, so meaning in life is characterized by the application of stable patterns to changing circumstances and the replacing of old patterns of understanding with new and exploratory ones. Meaning is found in the losing of it, the searching after it, and in the finding of it again. The meaning in your life is in flux and is to be found in the flux (the flow) of meaning, which is therefore itself a source of meaning in your life. All this does require, however, the developing of a tolerance for ambiguity, of a willingness to accept the inevitability of change and the precariousness of your present vision, and of an openness to the unending richness of your experience of the world in its manifold variety and diversity.
Ambiguity | Change | Circumstances | Death | Diversity | Experience | Life | Life | Meaning | Openness | Present | Understanding | Vision | World | Old |
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
Any man who says he is not afraid of death is a liar.
Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death but to inspire yourself to life.
Death | Imagination | Life | Life |
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
Only faith in a life after death in a brighter world where dear ones will meet again - only that and the measured tramp of time can give consolation.
Consolation | Death | Faith | Life | Life | Time | Will | World |
Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL
Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours are nothing but the mind. Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but the mind. The bubbles of water and the flames of fire are nothing but the mind. The flowers of the spring and the moon of the autumn are nothing but the mind. Confusions and dangers are nothing but the mind.