This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
Describes the professional artist as a morally suspect, even socially dangerous, conman, who from a deliberately chosen position of spiritual alienation, yet offers the ambiguous, self-serving products of his art, in expectation not only of support and remuneration, but also of social approval and even adoration as genius. [Paraphrased]
Alienation | Art | Expectation | Genius | Position | Remuneration | Self | Wisdom | Approval | Expectation |
All ideas require preparation for their meaning to engage the soul... There is no question whether they are true or not. One buys for oneself. There is no absolute truth. All truth is relative - relative to one’s needs, relative to one’s position in psychological space.
Absolute | Ideas | Meaning | Position | Question | Soul | Space | Truth | Wisdom |
We are here because in this part of the universe time is trained to stop... Life cannot survive in time that flows, or while it flows. Life survives only when time stands still... So it could happen someplace, somehow, that eternity and time would meet at a golden intersection. At the very heart of the cross, where eternity and time would connect, time would stop to be blessed by eternity. And that, in fact, is our present. Consequently, the present is the very portion of time that has stopped. Life survives only in the present. The past, therefore, consists of moments during which time has previously stopped; the future, of moments during which time will subsequently stop. So here we are. We are here because in this part of the universe time stops and makes life possible. Perhaps we can imagine a time that is not lined up to intersect eternity, a time that would seem sterile to our way of thinking. In such a region of the universe, we would not be in a position to exist since our dominant features are those of life and death.
Death | Eternity | Future | Heart | Life | Life | Past | Position | Present | Thinking | Time | Universe | Will | Wisdom | Blessed |
Tertullian, fully Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian NULL
Every creation is subject to recurrence. Every thing you meet had a previous existence: whatever you have lost will come again. Every thing comes a second time: all things return to a settled position when they have gone away, all things begin when they have ceased to be. They are brought to an end in order that they may come into being: nothing is lost except that it may be recovered. All this revolving order of things, therefore, is evidence of the resurrection of the dead. God ordained it in works before He commanded it in writing, He proclaimed it by strength before he proclaimed it in words. He first sent you nature as teacher, intending to send you prophecy also, in order that having learnt from nature, you may the more easily believe prophecy.
Evidence | Existence | God | Nature | Nothing | Order | Position | Prophecy | Strength | Time | Will | Wisdom | Words | Writing | God |
William Barrett, fully William Christopher Barrett
Man occupies a middle position in the universe, between the infinitesimal and the infinite: he is an All in the relation to Nothingness, a Nothingness in relation to the All. This middle position of man is the final and dominant fact of the human condition… It is also a perfect image of the finitude of human existence… Man is his finitude.
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
We can exist only in progress toward another world; we are not fixed in a permanent position within a crude and self-sufficient universe; we dwell in the midst of mystery.
Modern mental hospitals, where every method of control has been euphemistically renamed, can be frightening places. The actions of every staff member – the aide who holds a patient down, the nurse who injects the medication, the doctor who prescribes it – all have been defined as benevolent. Patients who dare to utter the unauthorized reality – that they are prisoners and that their “helpers” are jailers – only provide further evidence that they are indeed ill. Succumbing to brainwashing, accepting reality as defined by one’s captors, differs from a psychiatric “cure” only because in the latter case the accepted reality is the prevailing one. Holding a minority position makes a person a potential subject for psychiatric brainwashing.
You don't have to hold a position in order to be a leader.
David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
Entitlement as an emotional/psychological position stems from unresolved infantile, narcissistic egocentricity.
Position |
Alister Hardy, fully Sir Alister Clavering Hardy
The very fact that one can conceive [a]… possible solution may save one from being in the pessimistic position of imagining that there can be no possible purpose in the process at all. Such a defeatist loss of all sense of meaning… is one of the tragic outcomes of the materialism of today.
Materialism | Meaning | Position | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Loss |
Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Conscience | Cowardice | Position | Question | Right | Safe | Time |
Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Position |
John Henry Newman, aka Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman
Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. by faith only we know our position in the word of others. by faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?
Age | Circumstances | Faith | Parents | Position | Religion | Rights | World |
The oppressor must have the cooperation of the oppressed, of those he must feel better than. The oppressed and the damned are placed in an inferior position by force of arms, physical strength, and later, by threats of such force. But the long-time maintenance of power over others is secured by psychological manipulation and seduction.
Better | Cooperation | Force | Position | Power | Strength | Time |