This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
How is it, then, that we have collectively bamboozled ourselves into believing in material limitlessness? That we could grow our businesses without reference to their field of play – the resources of the earth? That our possessions could grow without reference to the limits of our ability to pay, now or in the future? The same ideology that treated land like an input for industrial agriculture, depleting it of available nutrients and filth had turned me away from caring for my own exquisite territory of body and soul. I came to call the kind of freedom we practice as Americans “hyper-freedom.” Freedom on steroids. We took “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as permission for all of us to seek our own good in a system we thought should get in our face the very least possible.
Choice | Cost | Longing | Mind | Need | Rest | Time | World |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
There is no one in the entire world who condemns you. You yourself are the only person who condemns you - and pointlessly. In reality, there is no condemnation whatever, but, as long as you think there is, you ache. Not only that, but a man dwelling with the illusion of self-condemnation is compulsively driven to do things that increase the illusion. There is no man, nor god, nor past experience to condemn you. You are free and you are free right now. Will you try to see this?
Need |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
You need only choose . . . then keep choosing as many times as necessary. That is all you need do. And it is certainly something you can do. Then as you continue to choose, everything is yours.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
We should be encouraged, not discouraged, by seeing how much work we have to do on ourselves. It means we are awakening to our actual condition, we are seeing our self-defeating attitudes. People who live in self-images of being positive and wise and pleasant see no need whatever to work on themselves, so they remain in the suffering caused by living in dreamland. The worse we see ourselves to be, the more encouraged we should be, for if you know all about darkness, you also know about dawn.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
To win real rewards, we must firmly decline the deceptive rewards offered by society.
Need | Revelation | Study | Understand |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
We need the wisdom to have nothing to say.
Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Whenever troubled about something, ask yourself, “Exactly who is troubled?” Now, if this troubled person does not truly represent your real nature, could the trouble exist except in wrong thinking? No, it could not. Do not pass by this idea. Stick with it for all you are worth, for it is the secret of secrets.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
You really think that something out there hurts you, not knowing that you are your own hurt.
Need |
At the hour of civilization through which we are now passing, and which is still so sombre, the miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.
Need |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
The more a man neglects his own life the more he will be compelled to wrongly involve himself in the lives of others. This accounts for the neurotic reformer, the busybody, the general troublemaker. Being self-deceived he will always credit himself with noble motives. This is a good example of the wrong use of natural energy.
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
The only way you’re going to have a good relationship with anyone is to have a good relationship with yourself.
This book, Les Misérables, is no less your mirror than ours. Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt against this book, — I understand that. Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them from being of use. As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.
Need | Understand |
Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Naturally only a few people were capable of reaching great spiritual heights. But a few were given the chance to attain human greatness even through their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would have never achieved. To the others of us, the mediocre and the half-hearted, the words of Bismarck could be applied: Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.” Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.
Contemplation | Conversation | Life | Life | Love | Means | Mind | Need | Nothing | Prison | Strength | Thought | Wife | Contemplation | Think | Thought |