This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Mental activity, which works in its way from the memory-image to the production of identity of perception via the outer world, merely represents a roundabout way to wish-fulfillment made necessary by experience. Thinking is indeed nothing but a substitute for the hallucinatory wish; and if the dream is called a wish-fulfillment, this becomes something self-evident, since nothing but a wish can impel our psychic apparatus to activity.
Character | Experience | Fulfillment | Memory | Nothing | Perception | Self | Thinking | World |
Countless the various species of mankind; countless the shades which separate mind from mind.
François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences.
Character | Consequences | Contempt | Little | Mind |
A tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute. What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Begin it and the work will be completed.
Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart, while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles their little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest - affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.
Character | Compassion | Contempt | Good | Heart | Little | Mind | Motives |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Our best hope for the future is that the intellect - the scientific spirit, reason - should in time establish a dictatorship over the human mind. The very nature of reason is a guarantee that it would not fail to concede to human emotions, and to all that is determined by them, the position to which they are entitled. But the common pressure exercised by such a domination of reason would prove to be the strongest unifying force among men, and would prepare the way for further unifications. Whatever, like the ban laid upon thought by religion, opposes such a development is a danger for the future of mankind.
Character | Danger | Emotions | Force | Future | Guarantee | Hope | Mankind | Men | Mind | Nature | Position | Reason | Religion | Spirit | Thought | Time | Danger | Intellect | Thought |
If we look back upon the usual course of our feelings, we shall find that we are more influenced by the frequent recurrence of objects than by their weight and importance; and that habit has more force in forming our habits than our opinions have. The mind naturally takes its tone and complexion from what it habitually contemplates.
Kindness is the inability to remain at ease in the presence of another person who is ill at ease, the inability to remain comfortable in the presence of another who is uncomfortable, the ability to have peace of mind when one's neighbor is troubled.
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
The mind grows by what it feeds on.
He only is great at heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career. And he is greatest who does the most of all these things and does them best.
I have found it helpful to keep constantly in mind that there are really two entries to be made for every transaction - one in terms of immediate dollars and cents, the other in terms of goodwill.
Edmund (Louis Antoine Huot) de Goncourt (1822-1896) and Jules (Alfred Huot) de Goncourt
Man is a mind betrayed, not served, by his organs.
The virtuous mind that ever walks attended by a strong siding champion, conscience.
Character | Conscience | Mind |