This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
Envy | Esteem | Greed | Self | Self-esteem |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison I am not free.
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
Neither experience nor science has given man the idea of immortality… The ideal of immortality rises from the very depths of his soul - he feels, he sees, he knows that he is immortal.
Experience | Immortality | Man | Science | Soul |
All motion or natural action takes place in time, more or less rapidly, but still in determined moments well ascertained by nature. Even those actions which appear to take effect suddenly, and in the twinkling of an eye (as we express it), are found to admit of greater or less rapidity.
When the soul resolves to perform every duty, immediately it is conscious of the presence of God.
There are countless places of refuge, there is only one place of salvation; but the possibilities of salvation, again, are as numerous as all the places of refuge.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
It is not true that the relations between the sexes are of the same order with the rest of man’s instincts. They have social consequences which place them in a class apart.
Consequences | Man | Order | Rest |
Frank Lloyd Wright, born Frank Lincoln Wright
Art and religion are the soul of our civilization. Go to them, for there love exists and endures.
Art | Civilization | Love | Religion | Soul |
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
Consciousness | Freedom | History | Progress | World |
This world, sir, is very clearly a place of torment and penance, a place where the fool flourishes and the good and wise are hated and persecuted, a place where men and women torture one another in the name of love; where children are scourged and enslaved in the name of parental duty and education; where the weak in body are poisoned and mutilated in the name of healing.
Body | Children | Duty | Education | Good | Love | Men | Torture | Wise | World |
George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
I do not know that I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas exist. Further, I know what I mean by the terms I and Myself; and I know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound. The Mind, Spirit, or Soul is that indivisible unextended thing which thinks, acts, and perceives.
In Hell there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, being a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself, is the paradise of the worthless.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
The history of mind is its own act. Mind is only what it does, and its act is to make itself the object of its own consciousness. In history its act is to gain consciousness of itself as mind, to apprehend itself in its interpretation of itself to itself.
Consciousness | History | Mind | Object |
George Gurdjieff, fully George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
It is necessary to distinguish consciousness from the possibility of consciousness. We have only the possibility of consciousness and rare flashes of it. Therefore we cannot define what consciousness is. For most people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something which, in his opinion, he already has.
Consciousness | Distinguish | Man | Opinion | People | Self | Will | Work | Obstacle | Think |