This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
If one is a philosopher, he can do nothing else than philosophize; or, if he does something else, he will do it with a view to securing the freedom he needs for philosophizing.
This exquisite state of immersion in oneself is not, unfortunately, of long duration. It is liable to be disturbed from the inside. As though sprung from nowhere, moods, feelings, desires, worries and even thoughts incontinently rise up, in a meaningless jumble, and the more farfetched and preposterous they are, and the less they have to do with that on which one has fixed oneÂ’s consciousness, the more tenaciously they hang on. It is as though they wanted to avenge themselves on consciousness for having, through concentration, touched upon realms it would otherwise never reach. The only successful way of rendering this disturbance inoperative is to keep on breathing, quietly and unconcernedly, to enter into friendly relations with whatever appears on the scene, to accustom oneself to it, to look at it equably and at last grow weary of looking. In this way one gradually gets into a state which resembles the melting drowsiness on the verge of sleep.
Right |
Dementia is only in the left austerity confuses a noble sentiment with a vile feeling.
You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness.
Need | Right | Struggle | Superstition | Suspicion | Talking | Theology |
I was astonished to learn in one of these best-selling books (on church life) that the size of my church parking lot had far more to do with how things fared in my congregation than my choice of texts in preaching. I was being lied to and I knew it.
I have my doubts (that the schools will open on time). We have a law case out of Sojourner-Douglass, and at Chesapeake we have all kinds of issues.
Expectation | God | Illusion | Imagination | Meaning | Means | Will | Work | God | Expectation |
Considered from the love in the real laws and in social forms of sexual union.
The moral is the only science of man comes to the welfare of man.
I wanted to read immediately. The only fear was that of books coming to an end.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
I donÂ’t like the miniskirt. It makes me nervous unless she is young and pretty. The back of the leg is a dead giveaway, and then you start thinking of age and death and not of sex.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
Socialism is very properly recognized by the capitalist class as the one cloud upon the horizon which portends an end to the system in which they have waxed fat, insolent and despotic through the exploitation of their countless wage-working slaves.
Right |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
For myself, I want no advantage over my fellow man, and if he is weaker than I, all the more is it my duty to help him.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
I told my friends of the cloth that I did not believe Christ was meek and lowly but a real living, vital agitator who went into the temple with a lash and a krout and whipped the oppressors of the poor, routed them out of the doors and spilled their blood and got silver on the floor. He told the robbed and misruled and exploited and driven people to disobey their plunderers, he denounced the profiteers, and it was for this that they nailed his quivering body to the cross and spiked it to the gates of Jerusalem, not because he told them to love one another. That was harmless doctrine. But when he touched their profits and denounced them before their people he was marked for crucifixion.
Right |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
The Republican and Democratic parties are alike capitalist parties — differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests — they have the same principles under varying colors, are equally corrupt and are one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to labor.
Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.