This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their primitive forms are accessible to our minds – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitutes true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
Art | Beauty | Existence | Experience | Fear | Good | Knowledge | Man | Mystery | Reason | Religion | Science | Sense | Wonder | Art |
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.
Art | Experience | Fear | Good | Mystery | Religion | Science | Wonder | Art |
The search for final truth rests with each individual personality and rendering the partial interpretations of our experience fundamentally consistent with one another. It is this fact that justifies the use of the word `God’ to designate the all embracing personality in whose existence ultimate reality exists.
Existence | Experience | God | Individual | Personality | Reality | Search | Truth |
What is important and of greatest significance is that an ideal of final truth is always before use and that the search for truth is acknowledged by all men as a duty not imposed from outside but born from within. The search for final truth rests with each individual personality and rendering the partial interpretations of our experience fundamentally consistent with one another. It is this fact that justifies the use of the word `God’ to designate the all embracing personality in whose existence ultimate reality exists.
Duty | Existence | Experience | God | Important | Individual | Men | Personality | Reality | Search | Truth |
A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self [ego]. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
Beauty | Compassion | Consciousness | Delusion | Ego | Experience | Feelings | Humanity | Nature | Prison | Rest | Self | Sense | Space | Thinking | Time | Universe | Value |
Physically man can never arrive at more than a partial view, or better still, his partial view of the phenomena; to this extent all scientific conclusions would appear to be subjective. Morally considered, the matter goes further… the truth at which the experimenter arrives will depend on the character of his experience and on the power of his perception which he brings to bear upon the phenomenon. What we `see’ of the world depends on what we are capable of seeing.
Better | Character | Experience | Man | Perception | Phenomena | Power | Truth | Will | World |
In the axial mode, human life is understood as involving a journey in which those who are successful move from a Lower to a Higher Realm. This journey is central to the meaning of life. Through an elevated mode of knowing, the world as we ordinarily experience is largely left behind, deemed less if not illusory, and the domain of reality itself is approached.
Experience | Journey | Knowing | Life | Life | Meaning | Reality | World |
An important way to distinguish philosophy from religion is that philosophy, at its best, raises questions, whereas religion provides answers. Answers can sometimes lose their force, however, if the questions to which they provide answers have somehow been lost, muted, or superseded. But philosophy can never end. As long as we live, we are going to ask ourselves about the meaning of life. Some have written about the “end of philosophy.” It has been thought that philosophy exists only if you can construe life as a journey traveling to a new and different dimension. Some have said that the cognitive sciences, linguistics, neuroscience, and so forth will advance so much that traditional technical problems of philosophy will diminish. Insofar as philosophy is a pursuit of the art of living providing (often conflicting) guidance for living, there is a future for philosophy.
Art | Distinguish | Force | Future | Guidance | Important | Journey | Life | Life | Meaning | Philosophy | Problems | Religion | Thought | Will | Guidance | Art | Thought |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
Whatever complaints the neurotic patient may have, whatever symptoms he may present are rooted in his inability to love, if we mean by love a capacity for the experience of concern, responsibility, respect, and understanding of another person and the intense desire for that other person’s growth.
Capacity | Desire | Experience | Growth | Love | Present | Respect | Responsibility | Understanding |
A grand meta-narrative is a story of the development and purpose of human history in which we as individual can find a place and play a role. Four basic meta-narratives: (1) Platonic Christian is the idea of life as a journey to another unchanging realm. (2) Hegel’s view that history is the unfolding of the consciousness of God. (3) Marx’s notion of another revolution ushering in a new era. (4) Nietzsche’s idea that there is no “beyond” and that the only meaning comes through creative activities through which we shape a life for ourselves.
Consciousness | Era | God | History | Individual | Journey | Life | Life | Meaning | Play | Purpose | Purpose | Revolution | Story |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
In mysticism… the attempt is given up to know God by thought, and it is replaced by the experience of union with God in which there is no more room – and no need – for knowledge about God.
Experience | God | Knowledge | Mysticism | Need | Thought | God |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
There is no meaning in life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his power, by living productively… Only constant vigilance, activity, and effort can keep us from failing in the one task that matters – the full development of our powers within the limitations set up by the laws of our existence.
Effort | Existence | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Power | Vigilance |
You can only live in the present… only act in the present… only experience in the present. What you call the future, things that you may be planning, or things that you may be dreading – all this is still but a present state of mind. This is the real meaning of the traditional phrase, The Eternal Now. The only joy you can experience is the joy you experience now. A happy memory is a present joy. The only pain you can experience is the pain of the present moment. Sad memories are present pain.
Eternal | Experience | Future | Happy | Joy | Meaning | Memory | Mind | Pain | Present |