This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Our truest life is when are in dreams awake.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.
Dreams |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
All our life… is a persistent dreaming awake.
If we listen to our self-love, we shall estimate our lot less by; what it is than by what it is not; shall dwell upon its hindrances and be blind to its possibilities; and, comparing it only with imaginary lives, shall indulge in flattering dreams of what we should do if we had but power, and give if we had but wealth, and be if we had no temptations.
There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.
Courage | Dreams | Hope | Imagination | Reality |
The test of real and vigorous thinking, the thinking which ascertains truths instead of dreaming dreams, is successful application to practice. Where that purpose does not exist, to give definiteness, precision, and an intelligible meaning to thought, it generates nothing better than the mystical metaphysics of the Pythagoreans or the Vedas.
Better | Dreams | Meaning | Metaphysics | Mystical | Nothing | Practice | Precision | Purpose | Purpose | Thinking | Thought | Truths |
The most generous dreams of the past have not become immediate practical necessities: a word-wide cooperation of people, a more just distribution of al the goods of life; the use of knowledge and energy or the service of life, and the use of life itself for the extension of the human spirit to provinces where human values and purposes could not heretofore penetrate. If we awaken in time to overcome the automatisms and irrational compulsions that are now pushing nations toward destruction, we shall create a universal community.
Cooperation | Dreams | Energy | Knowledge | Life | Life | Nations | Past | People | Service | Spirit | Time |
How ignorant are those who see, without question, the abstract existence of some of their senses, but insist upon doubting until that existence reveals itself to all their senses. Is not faith the sense of the heart as truly as sight is the sense of the eye?... How strange is the one who dreams in truth of a beautiful reality, and then, when he endeavours to fashion it into form but cannot succeed, doubts the dream and blasphemes the reality and distrusts the beauty!
Abstract | Beauty | Dreams | Existence | Faith | Heart | Question | Reality | Sense | Truth |
He who passes not his days in the realm of dreams is the slave of the days.
Dreams |
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
Just as we have learned to separate ourselves from each other and from the environment, we now need to learn how to reunite ourselves with other entities around us without losing our hard-won individuality. The most promising faith for the future might be based on the realization that the entire universe is a system related by common laws and that it makes no sense to impose our dreams and desires on nature without taking them into account. Recognizing the limitations of human will, accepting a cooperative rather than a ruling role in the universe, we should feel the relief of the exile who is finally returning home. The problem of meaning will then be resolved as the individual's purpose merges with the universal flow.
Dreams | Faith | Future | Individual | Individuality | Meaning | Nature | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | System | Universe | Will | Learn |
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we caught happiness without dreaming of it.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Remember that when you are unhappy it is generally because you do not visualize strongly enough the great things that you definitely want to accomplish in life, nor do you employ steadfastly enough your will power, your creative ability, and your patience until your dreams are materialized.
Ability | Dreams | Enough | Life | Life | Patience | Power | Will |