This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Know thou the soul as riding in a chariot, the body as the chariot. Know thou the intellect as the chariot-driver, and the mind as the reins. The senses, they say, are the horses; the objects of sense, what they range over, the self combined with senses and mind, wise men call `the enjoyer.’ He who has not understanding, whose mind is not constantly held firm – his senses are uncontrolled, like the vicious horses of a chariot-driver.
Body | Men | Mind | Self | Sense | Soul | Understanding | Wise | Intellect |
Above the senses is the mind. Above the mind is the intellect. Above the intellect is the ego. Above the ego is the unmanifested seed, the Primal Cause. And verily beyond the unmanifested seed is the self, the unconditioned Knowing whom one attains to freedom and achieves immortality.
Cause | Ego | Freedom | Immortality | Knowing | Mind | Self | Intellect |
Take care not to make the intellect our god; it has powerful muscles but no personality.
Care | God | Personality | Intellect |
Human beings seek a prior meaning in everything as a defense against doubts about the importance of anything, including man's existence ... To affirm that there is a supreme meaning of life is to give the intellect an opportunity to escape the disquieting conclusion that nothing people do can possibly have more than slight importance.
Defense | Existence | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Nothing | Opportunity | People | Intellect |
Alexis de Tocqueville, Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
One of the most ordinary weakness of the human intellect is to seek reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.
Logic | Peace | Principles | Weakness | Intellect |
Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion. Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by our bodily experience. Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies: we could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.
Experience | Life | Life | Intellect |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Thinking for oneself is always arduous and is sometimes painful. The temptation to stop thinking and to take dogma on faith is strong. Yet, since the intellect does possess the capacity to think for itself, it also has the impulse and feels the obligation. We may therefore feel sure that the intellect will always refuse, sooner or later, to take traditional doctrines on trust.
Capacity | Dogma | Faith | Impulse | Obligation | Temptation | Thinking | Trust | Will | Intellect | Temptation | Think |
Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor, for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated while he lives. but when a century has passed, the world recognizes it and wishes him back again.
Genius | Greatness | Men | Reason | Size | Time | Wishes | World | Intellect |
Compared with the short span of time they live, men of great intellect are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor, for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated while he lives. But when a century has passed, the world recognizes it and wishes him back again.
Genius | Greatness | Men | Reason | Size | Time | Wishes | World | Intellect |
Perfect clarity would profit the intellect but damage the will.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress.
The great intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Men | Originality | Intellect |