This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
`Tis not without reason that [Man] seeks out and is willing to join in Society with others who are already united or have a mind to unite for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property. The great and chief end, therefore, of Men’s uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of Property.
Government | Man | Men | Mind | Property | Reason | Society | Society |
J. P. Morgan, fully John Pierpont Morgan
A man always has two reason for the things he does – a good one and the real one.
The relation of existence to time is characterized by two polar elements: temporality and uninterruptedness. Existence is evanescent and always faces the prospect of annihilation, of being thrown out of the stream of time, yet it also exhibits some degree of permanence as the continuous duration in time. Without an element of constancy there could be no permanence within temporality and no knowledge of reality, since our categories of reason are “mirrors, in which the things are reflected in the light of their constancy… Things perish within time, while time itself is everlasting… The present moment is not a terminal but a signal of beginning, an act of creation.
Beginning | Constancy | Existence | Knowledge | Light | Present | Reality | Reason | Time |
Since everything that comes into the human minds enters through the gates of sense, man’s first reason is a reason of sense-experience. It is this that serves as a foundation for the reason of the intelligence; our first teachers in natural philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. To substitute books for them does not teach us to reason, it teaches us to use the reason of others rather than our own; it teaches us to believe much and know little.
Books | Experience | Intelligence | Little | Man | Philosophy | Reason | Sense | Teach |
Fear is the anticipation and expectation of evil or pain, as contrasted with hope which is the anticipation of good. Awe, on the other hand, is the sense of wonder and humility inspired by the sublime or felt in the presence of mystery. Fear is “a surrender of the succors which reason offers,” awe is the acquisition of insights which the world holds in store for us. Awe, unlike fear, does not make us shrink from the awe-inspiring object, but, on the contrary, draws us near to it. That is why awe is compatible with both love and joy.
Anticipation | Awe | Evil | Expectation | Fear | Good | Hope | Humility | Joy | Love | Mystery | Object | Pain | Reason | Sense | Surrender | Wonder | World | Expectation |
Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin
The Taoist solution was to get oneself in harmony with the Way or Tao of the universe, to learn to move through the world with flexibility and fluidity according to the nature of things, rather than fighting it, ourselves, or other people.
Fighting | Flexibility | Harmony | Nature | People | Universe | World | Flexibility | Learn |
An expansion of the individual consciousness toward a harmony with Infinite Consciousness demands of the individual that he take on, commensurately, other characteristics of his Creator.
Consciousness | Harmony | Individual |
Because God is One, all our lives have various and unique places in the harmony of the divine life. And because God attains and wins and finds this uniqueness, all our lives win in our union with him the individuality which is essential to their true meaning.
God | Harmony | Individuality | Life | Life | Meaning | Unique | God |
Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen
Faith is not a dam which prevents the flow of the river of reason and thought; it is a levee which prevents unreason from flooding the countryside.
Doctrines are the most fearful tyrants to which men ever are subject because doctrines get inside of a man’s own reason and betray him against himself.
The meaning and purpose of the world remain to a large extent inexplicable. But one thing is clear: the purpose of all events is spiritual. The purpose of existence is that we human beings, all nations and the whole of humanity, should constantly progress toward perfection. If we do this, our finite spirit will be in harmony with the infinite.
Events | Existence | Harmony | Humanity | Meaning | Nations | Perfection | Progress | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Will | World |
Stevie Smith, fully Florence Margaret Smith
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a person. It was not reasoned into them and cannot be reasoned out.
We will never comprehend why the infinite will, in order to realize its completion, requires the incomplete, or how evil can result in good. No forced attempt to reason out these events can give us peace of God. There is a different way, a way born from inward experience. We may not have been given the privilege of understanding how events are expressing the will of God. But one thing we do know, and on that knowledge all else depends – the will of God is directed only toward one thing: the spiritual.
Events | Evil | Experience | God | Good | Knowledge | Order | Peace | Reason | Understanding | Will | God | Privilege |
A child has not yet been hypnotized by the world idea of limitation and lives naturally in harmony with its source. That is why most grown people love to be with children. They radiate the natural harmony of the Universe and that is the natural environment of man.
Children | Harmony | Love | Man | People | Universe | World | Child |