This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.
The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.
Knowledge | Light | Man | Nature | Revelation |
Wisdom consists in the highest use of the intellect for the discernment of the largest moral interest of humanity. It is the most perfect willingness to do the right combined with the utmost attainable knowledge of what is right… Wisdom consists in working for the better from the love of the best.
Better | Discernment | Humanity | Knowledge | Love | Right | Wisdom | Intellect |
If we had no motivation to be preoccupied with our sensations, the impressions that objects made on us would pass like shadows, and leave no trace. After several years, we would be the same as we were at our first moment, without having acquired any knowledge, and without having any other faculties than feeling. But the nature of our sensations does not let us remain enslaved in this lethargy. Since they are necessarily agreeable or disagreeable, we are involved in seeking the former, avoiding the latter; and the greater the intensity of difference between pleasure and pain, the more it occasions action in our souls. Thus the privation of an object that we judge necessary for our well-being, gives us disquiet, that uneasiness we call need, and from which desires are born. These needs recur according to circumstances, often quite new ones present themselves, and it is in this way that our knowledge and faculties develop.
Action | Circumstances | Knowledge | Lethargy | Nature | Need | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Present |
Some men think that the gratification of curiosity is the end of knowledge; some the love of fame; some the pleasure of dispute; some the necessity of supporting themselves by their knowledge; but the real use of all knowledge is this, that we should dedicate that reason which was given us by God to the use and advantage of man.
Curiosity | Dispute | Fame | God | Knowledge | Love | Man | Men | Necessity | Pleasure | Reason | God | Think |
F.S.C. Northrop, fully Filmer Stuart Cuckow "F.S.C." Northrop
No words mean or can say anything, except one knows, with inexpressible and unsayable immediacy, what the words are pointing at or showing, independently of the words themselves. Such knowledge is what the word `mystical’ means.
Galileo Galilei, known simply as Galileo
The knowledge of a single fact acquired through a discovery of its causes prepares the mind to understand and ascertain other facts without need of recourse to experiment.
Discovery | Experiment | Knowledge | Mind | Need | Discovery | Understand |
Wisdom is the intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath one's ego-driven anxieties and aggressions. Meditation is going into the mind to see this for yourself - over and over again, until it becomes the mind you live in.
There are many paths to knowledge already discovered; and no enlightened man doubts that there are many more waiting to be discovered. Indeed, all paths lead to knowledge; because even the vilest and stupidest action teaches us something about vileness and stupidity and may accidentally teach us a good deal more.
Action | Good | Knowledge | Man | Stupidity | Teach | Waiting |
There is a snare, however, in the very essence of knowledge in that it has to be a form of faith, and faith is something psychic rather than spiritual.
In imagination, not in perception, lies the substance of experience, while knowledge and reason are but its chastened and ultimate form.
Experience | Imagination | Knowledge | Perception | Reason |
Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace. It is an advance on sensation precisely because it is representative.
Harry Browne, fully Harry Edson Browne
Security - It is simply the recognition that changes will take place and the knowledge that you are willing to deal with whatever happens.
Both houses of Congress have, by their joint Committee, requested me “To recommend to the People of the United States, a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful Hearts the many Signal Favours of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Form of Government for their Safety and Happiness”... That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind Care and Protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation; for the signal and manifold Mercies, and the favourable Interpositions of his Providence in the Course & Conclusion of the late War; for the great Degree of Tranquillity, Union, and Plenty, which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational Manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of Government for our Safety and Happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious Liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general, for all the great and various Favours which he hath been pleased to confer upon us... to enable us all, whether in public or private Stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually... to promote the Knowledge and Practice of true Religion and Virtue, and the increase of Science among them and us; and generally to grant unto all mankind such a Degree of temporal Prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Care | Day | God | Government | Knowledge | Liberty | Mankind | Means | Opportunity | People | Plenty | Practice | Prayer | Prosperity | Providence | Public | Religion | Science | Tranquility | Virtue | Virtue | War | Government |
The great enemy of knowledge is not error, but inertness. All that we want is discussion; and then we are sure to do well, no matter what our blunders may be. One error conflicts with another, each destroys its opponent, and truth is evolved.
Discussion | Enemy | Error | Knowledge | Truth |
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.