This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The philosophy of restorative justice is not a new concept, but one we've forgotten. As a kid, when I broke a window next door, my grandmother took me over there to apologize. I had to find a way to pay for the window - collect bottles or mow the grass. Restorative justice is a return to the values of our grandmothers.
Justice | Philosophy |
How freely we live life depends both on our political system and on our vigilance in defending its liberties. How long we live depends both on our genes and on the quality of our health care. How well we live ~ that is, how thoughtfully, how nobly, how virtuously, how joyously, how lovingly - depends both on our philosophy and on the way we apply it to all else. The examined life is a better life.
Better | Care | Health | Life | Life | Philosophy | System | Vigilance |
We know that we live in contradiction, but that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as men is to find those few first principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice in the world which is so obviously unjust, and make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century.
Contradiction | Justice | Men | Nations | Principles | Will | World | Happiness |
Philosophy is akin to poetry, and both of them seek to express that ultimate sense which we term civilization. In each there is reference to form beyond the direct meanings of words. Poetry allies itself to metre, philosophy to mathematic pattern.
Civilization | Philosophy | Poetry | Sense | Words |
Amos Pinchot, fully Amos Richards Eno Pinchot
Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes - the nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government.
Fear | Government | Nations | People | World | Government |
Amos Pinchot, fully Amos Richards Eno Pinchot
Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes – the nations in which government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government.
Fear | Government | Nations | People | World | Government |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of Divine Will.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Philosophy | Will | Worth |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Science is what you know; philosophy is what you don't know.
Philosophy | Science |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
To teach how to live with uncertainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy in our age can still do for those who study it.
Age | Philosophy | Study | Teach | Uncertainty |
Black Elk, formallly Heȟáka Sápa NULL
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.
Important | Men | Nations | Oneness | Peace | People | Relationship | Universe | Understand |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The value of philosophy is to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. He who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thought and free them from the tyranny of custom.
Age | Common Sense | Convictions | Cooperation | Custom | Life | Life | Mind | Philosophy | Problems | Reason | Sense | Thought | Tyranny | Uncertainty | Thought | Value |