This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
When attention is not focused on a goal, the mind typically begins to be filled by disjointed and depressing thoughts. The normal condition of the mind is chaos. Only when involved in a goal-directed activity does it acquire order and positive moods... Boredom directs us to seek new challenges, while anxiety urges us to develop new skills; the net result is that, in order to avoid such negative feelings, a person is forded to grow in complexity.
Noah Webster, fully Noah Webster, Jr.
It is alleged by men of loose principles, or defective views of the subject, that religion and morality are not necessary or important qualifications for political station. When a citizen gives his vote to a man of immorality, he abuses his civic responsibility. He sacrifices not only his own interest but that of his neighbor, and he betrays the interest of his country.
Important | Man | Men | Morality | Principles | Religion | Responsibility |
Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses... on your powers, instead of your problems.
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
Politics |
The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.
Circumstances | Comfort | Indifference | Luxury | Need |
Progress is the activity of to-day and the assurance of to-morrow.
Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.
T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot
No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which they took no interest. For it is part of education to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.
Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and in passivity, assertion and denial. To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know. To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance. Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.
Appearance | Assertion | Enlightenment | Ignorance | Meaning | Nothing | Reality | Search | Talking | Thinking | Truth | Will | World | Think |
For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Achievement | Children | Enjoyment | Success |
Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
The Way is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things. Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in the inner feeling of emptiness. Be serene in the oneness of things, nor in the inner feeling of emptiness. Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very efforts fills you with activity. As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know Oneness.
Excess | Extreme | Nature | Nothing | Oneness | Space | Will |
True conversation is an interpenetration of worlds, a genuine intercourse of souls, which doesn’t have to be self-consciously profound but does have to touch matters of concern to the soul... Conversation may also relive us from the pressures of everyday activity and decision-making, opening us up to undisclosed levels of our experience. Soul resides in the overtones and undertones, not in the flat body of literal events. Conversation performs a pleasurable and gentle alchemy on experience, sublimating it into forms that can be examined. Experience itself takes wing from conversation... Conversation is the sex act of the soul, and as such it is supremely conducive to the cultivation of intimacy.
Alchemy | Body | Conversation | Cultivation | Decision | Events | Experience | Self | Soul |
Everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.
Justice |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
What is at the heart of all our national problems? It is that we have seen the hand of material interest sometimes about to close upon our dearest rights and possessions.
Heart | Possessions | Problems | Rights |