This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The 'preferred future' - an image of aspiration - [is] a powerful guidance mechanism… When people plan present actions by working backward from what is really desired, they develop energy, enthusiasm, optimism and high commitment.
Aspiration | Commitment | Energy | Enthusiasm | Future | Guidance | Optimism | People | Plan | Present | Aspiration | Guidance |
Many people live as if life were a dress rehearsal for some later date. It isn't. In fact, no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. When our attention is in the present moment, we push fear from our minds.
Attention | Control | Fear | Guarantee | Life | Life | People | Present | Time | Tomorrow | Will |
Lu Xun, or Lu Hsün, pen name of Zhou Shuren
I naturally believe there will be a future, but I do not waste my time imagining its radiant beauty… It seems tome that we ought to think first about the present. Even if the present is desperately dark, I do not wish to leave it. Will tomorrow be free from darkness? We’ll talk about that tomorrow.
Beauty | Darkness | Future | Present | Time | Tomorrow | Waste | Will | Think |
He searches all around for his thought. But what thought? It is either passionate, or hateful, or confused. What about the past, future or present? What is past that is extinct, what is future that has not yet arrived, and the present has no stability. For thought, Kasyapa, cannot be apprehended, inside, or outside, or in between both. For thought is immaterial, invisible, nonresisting, inconceivable, unsupported, and homeless. Thought has never been seen by any of the Buddhas, nor do they see it, nor will they see it. And what the Buddhas never see, how can that be an observable process, except in the sense that dharmas proceed by the way of mistaken perception? Thought is like a magical illusion; by an imagination of what is actually unreal it takes hold of a manifold variety of rebirths. A thought is like the stream of a river, without any staying power; as soon as it is produced it breaks up and disappears. A thought is like a flame of a lamp, and it proceeds through causes and conditions. A thought is like lightning, it breaks up in a moment and does not stay on... Can thought review thought? No, thought cannot review thought. As the blade of a sword cannot cut itself, so a thought cannot see itself. Moreover, vexed and pressed hard on all sides, thought proceeds, without any staying power, like a monkey or like the wind. It ranges far, bodiless, easily changing, agitated by the objects of sense, with the six sense-fields for its sphere, connected with one thing after another. The stability of thought, its one-pointedness, its immobility, its undistraughtness, its one-pointed calm, its nondistraction, that is on the other hand called mindfulness as to thought.
Future | Illusion | Imagination | Mindfulness | Past | Perception | Power | Present | Sense | Thought | Will | Thought |
At the present time, global interdependence is celebrated as a self-evident good. The royal road to development, peace, and harmony is thought to be the unrelenting conquest of each nation's market by all other nations.
Conquest | Global | Good | Harmony | Nations | Peace | Present | Self | Thought | Time | Thought |
Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
You'll seldom experience regret for anything that you've done. It is what you haven't done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you've lost them forever.
Appreciation | Experience | Life | Life | Means | Present | Regret | Self | Will | Appreciation | Value |
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Distinction | Future | Illusion | Past | Present |
No matter how or when a person acquired their irrational beliefs and self-sabotaging habits, they now, in the present, choose to maintain them - and that is why they are disturbed. One's past history and present life conditions importantly affect one; but they don't disturb one. A person's present philosophy is the main contributor of their current disturbance.
History | Life | Life | Past | Philosophy | Present | Self |
The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values. Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.
Future | Myth | Order | Past | Present | Society | Tradition | Society |
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
Eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.
Present |
The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
Anyone can become part of the critical mass that offers us a chance of improving the world before it is too late. You can rethink your goals and question what you are doing with your life. If your present way of living does not stand up against an impartial standard of value, then you can change it.
Chance | Change | Goals | Life | Life | Present | Question | World |
Even the dead hand of the past, as in outmoded customs or bureaucracies, retains its power over the present only by a constantly renewed acquiescence among those who submit to it.