This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It sometimes seems that the thing we least possess and can call our own is our self. We cannot be sure of our faculties, talents, and creative powers. We can possess and keep under lock and key only that which is not part of the self.
Self |
Man started out as a "weak thing of the world" and evolved "to confound the things that are mighty." And within the human species, too, the weak often develop aptitudes and devises which enable them not only to survive but to prevail over the strong. Indeed, the formidableness of the human species stems from the survival of its weak. Were it not for the compassion that moves us to care for the sick, the crippled, and the old there would probably would have been neither culture or civilization. The crippled warrior who had to stay behind while the manhood of the tribe went out to war was the storyteller, teacher, and artisan. The old and the sick had a hand in the development of the arts of healing and of cooking. One thinks of the venerable sage, the unhinged medicine man, the epileptic prophet, the blind bard, and the witty hunchback and dwarf.
Care | Civilization | Compassion | Culture | Man | Survival | War | World | Old |
In facing loss… Love is the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.
Love |
Consciously or not, we are all on a quest for answers, trying to learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for meaning, love, and power. We try to understand fear, loss, and time. We seek to discover who we are and how we can become truly happy… Not all of these lessons are enjoyable to learn, but everyone finds that they enrich the texture of life.
Fear | Guilt | Happy | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Power | Search | Time | Learn | Understand |
The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matters.
Self |
Our humanity were a poor thing but for the divinity that stirs within us.
Responsibility is the thing people dread the most of all. Yet it is one thing in the world that develops us.
Dread | People | Responsibility | World |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
It is a good thing to demand liberty for ourselves and for those who agree with us, but it is a better thing and a rarer thing to give liberty to others who do not agree.
Men fear death, as children fear the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by frightful tales, so is the other. Groans, convulsions, weeping friends, and the like show death terrible; yet there is no passion so weak but conquers the fear of it, and therefore death is not such a terrible enemy. Revenge triumphs over death, loves slights its, honor aspires to it, dread of shame prefers it, grief flies to it, and fear anticipates it.
Children | Death | Dread | Enemy | Fear | Grief | Honor | Men | Passion | Revenge | Shame |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
Nothing is terrible, except fear itself... revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to week it out... Certainly, in taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. This is certain, the man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
Enemy | Fear | Justice | Law | Man | Nature | Nothing | Pardon | Revenge |
Certainly the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but he fear of it, as a tribute due unto Nature, is weak.
Contemplation | Death | Fear | Nature | Sin | World | Contemplation |
The differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change.
There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it.