This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Religion is behavior and not mere belief.
Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers
There are many things children accept as “grown-up things” over which they have no control and for which they have no responsibility – for instance, weddings, having babies, buying houses, and driving cars. Parents who are separating really need to help their children put divorce on that grown-up list, so that children do not see themselves as the cause of their parents’ decision to live apart.
Cause | Children | Control | Decision | Need | Parents | Responsibility |
Words are things. Thoughts are things. Where your thoughts are, you are. When we learn to discipline and control our thoughts and feelings, and use only the positive, constructive words, sent forth with divine love, our body and mind respond to that righteousness – right-use-ness. The right use and selection of words is of vital importance but equally important is the feeling behind those words, for feeling is the motivating power that makes the words live.
Body | Control | Discipline | Feelings | Important | Love | Mind | Power | Right | Righteousness | Words | Learn |
Religion is an explanation (Creed) of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live (Code and Community–structure) accordingly, which is based on the notion of the Transcendent (Cult). Because Religion is an explanation of the ultimate meaning of life it provides a code of behavior in the fullest possible sense, including all the psychological, social and cultural dimensions of human life, and is hence a “Way of Life” – for humans.
Behavior | Creed | Cult | Life | Life | Meaning | Religion | Sense |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
The aim and end of war is murder; the weapons employed in war are espionage, treachery and the encouragement of treachery, the ruining of a country, the plundering and robbing of its inhabitants for the maintenance of the army, and trickery and lying which all appear under the heading of the art of war. The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom – in other words, a rigorous discipline – enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness.
Absence | Art | Cruelty | Discipline | Freedom | Ignorance | Inactivity | Lying | Murder | Treachery | War | Weapons | Words | World | Art |
When it comes to more complex behavior mathematics has never in fact done well at explaining most of what we see every day in nature.
Behavior | Day | Mathematics | Nature |
Computational irreducibility tends to make infinite questions undecidable. The presence of universality implies that there must at some level be computational irreducibility… This means that today’s mathematics will be viewed as small and surprisingly uncharacteristic sample of what is possible. If a system is computationally irreducible this means that there is in effect a tangible separation between the underlying rules for the system and its overall behavior associated with the irreducible amount of computational work needed to go from one to the other. And it is this separation that the basic origin of the apparent freedom we see in all sorts of system lie – whether those systems are abstract cellular automata or actual living brains.
Abstract | Behavior | Freedom | Mathematics | Means | System | Will | Work |
Niels Bohr, fully Neils Henrik David Bohr
We have been forced step by step to forgo a causal description of the behavior of individual atoms in space and time, and to reckon with a free choice on the part of nature between various possibilities.
Behavior | Choice | Free choice | Individual | Nature | Space | Time |
Just as individual ethics can be understood only in relation to the society within which it is practiced, it is also true that individual ethical behavior is far likelier to flourish within a just society. It might be argued that to lead an ethical life one must work to build a just society.
Behavior | Ethics | Individual | Life | Life | Society | Work | Society |
Once people understand that change is a process--a developmental progression with distinct steps to move through--then our capacity to alter behavior is quite impressive. It is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash.
Behavior | Capacity | Change | People | Understand |
Unethical behavior both stems from and reinforces destructive mental factors such as greed and anger. Conversely, ethical behavior undermines these and cultivates mental factors such as kindness, compassion, and calm. Ultimately, after transpersonal maturation occurs, ethical behavior is said to flow spontaneously as a natural expression of identification with all people and all life.
Anger | Behavior | Compassion | Greed | Kindness | Life | Life | People |
Anne Frank, fully Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank
How true Daddy’s words were when he said: “All children must look after their own upbringing.” Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Advice | Character | Children | Good | Parents | Right | Words |