This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvelous for their purity and their enduringness, and it is to be expected that those who know ill pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire. And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of must belong most to the contemplative activity.
Events | Purity | Self | Self-sufficiency | Thought | Time | Wisdom | Thought |
The pursuit of science in itself is never materialistic. It is a search for the principles of law and order in the universe, and as such an essentially religious endeavor.
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.
Cause | Consequences | Evil | Reality | Reason | Sacrifice |
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.
Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum
In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.
The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of glory. But it is also the great mark of his excellence; for whatever possessions he may have on earth, whatever health and essential comfort, he is not satisfied if he has not the esteem of men.
Baseness | Comfort | Earth | Esteem | Excellence | Glory | Health | Man | Men | Possessions |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavor after a worthy manner of life.
Beginning | Cruelty | Fear | Life | Life | Superstition | Truth | Wisdom |
Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or, if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure. Pride has such a thorough possession of us, even in the midst of our miseries and faults, that we are prepared to sacrifice life with joy, if it may be talked of.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power.
As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.
Good | Harmony | Heart | Impulse | Man | Phenomena | Principles |
Security is a feeling that there is a larger and more enduring life surrounding, appreciating, upholding the individual, and guaranteeing that his efforts and sacrifice will not be in vain.
The ‘great’ commitment is so much easier than the ordinary everyday one - and can all too easily shut our hearts to the latter. A willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice can be associated with, and even produce, a great hardness of heart.
Commitment | Heart | Sacrifice |