This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
There are some passions so close to virtues that there is danger lest we be deceived by the doubtful distinction between them.
Danger | Distinction | Danger |
The philosophical and religious West has been axial for almost 3,000 years. In the axial model, a sharp distinction was made between this world and a world beyond, and the idea arose that, although, we are in this world, we are not of this world. According to this model, human life is a journey that leads us from appearance to reality, bondage to liberation, confusion to insight, and darkness to light.
Appearance | Darkness | Distinction | Insight | Journey | Life | Life | Light | Model | Reality | World |
Since we were all born of the same father of souls, why should there be any distinction between you and me or between others and ourselves?
Distinction | Father |
They all knelt together and suddenly - not a barrier of any kind remained, not a sundering distinction in the whole throng; but every life flamed into the other, and all flamed into the one Life and were hushed in ineffable peace.
Distinction | Life | Life | Peace |
Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL
Universal love… means that one makes no distinction between the state of others and one’s own; none between the houses of other and one’s own; none between the other person and oneself.
Distinction | Love | Means |
The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists; the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or “caves in.”
Distinction | Trifles |
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Distinction | Future | Illusion | Past | Present |
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion.
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
So far there has been no known human society in which the distinction between right and wrong, and the obligation to do right, have been denied.
Distinction | Obligation | Right | Society | Wrong | Society |
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker
There is not even a meaning to the word experience which would not presuppose the distinction between past and future.
Distinction | Experience | Future | Meaning | Past |
Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand.
Distinction | Men | Opportunity | Talent |
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned into it), are the natural securities for this transmission.
Avarice | Benevolence | Circumstances | Distinction | Family | Possessions | Power | Property | Society | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Wealth | Society |
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Will without freedom is an empty word, while freedom is actual only as will, as subject... Mind is in principle thinking, and man is distinguished from beast in virtue of thinking. But it must not be imagined that man is half thought and half will, and that he keeps thought in one pocket and will in another, for this would be a foolish idea. The distinction between thought and will is only that between the theoretical attitude and the practical. These, however, are surely not two faculties; the will is rather a special way of thinking, thinking translating itself into existence, thinking as the urge to give itself existence.
Distinction | Existence | Freedom | Man | Mind | Thinking | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Theoretical | Thought |
All who achieve real distinction in life begin as revolutionists. the most distinguished persons become more revolutionary as they grow older, though they are commonly supposed to become more conservative owing to their loss of faith in conventional methods of reform.
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
The political leaders with whom we are familiar generally aspire to be superstars rather than heroes. The distinction is crucial. Superstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see it as their task to bring about. Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of inner values.
Distinction | Future | Judgment | Success |
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
If we hold fast to the distinction between today and tomorrow and yesterday, we hold fast to nothingness.
Distinction | Tomorrow |