This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We must make the truth as simple, as persuasive, as impelling, and as interesting as the lie often seems to be. The truth can never enslave, it can never mesmerize. The truth is always within us.
In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition.
Nothing | Opposition | Truth | Wisdom |
Russell W. Davenport, fully Russell Wheeler Davenport
It is not solutions that make ideas attractive. It is unsolved possibilities.
Naked reality would scarcely keep the world in motion.
As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered, which can seldom or never be fitted into creeds that are changeless.
Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.
Abstract | Ideas | Preference | Wisdom |
Victor Daniels, aka Chief Thundercloud
We must learn to tailor our concepts to fit reality, instead of trying to stuff reality into our concepts.
Teachers of today must have the ability to bring personal meaning to ideas as they investigate, interpret and integrate their thoughts. They must possess their own unique conceptual frameworks on which to hang ideas. They should be able to select, and build upon, significant ideas, observe relationships, and distinguish essential matters from irrelevant and incidental ones.
Diff'ring judgments serve but to declare that Truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
Beliefs, desires, and intentions are a condition of language, but language is also a condition for them. On the other hand, being able to attribute beliefs and desires to a creature is certainly a condition of sharing a convention with that creature; while, if I am right... convention is not a condition of language. I suggest, then, that philosopher who make convention a necessary element in language have the matter backwards. The truth is rather that language is a condition for having conventions.
Convention | Language | Right | Truth | Wisdom |
All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves beside.