This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Peace comes only from loving, from mutual self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness. Few today have humility or wisdom enough to know the world's deep need of love. We are too much possessed by national and racial and cultural pride.
Enough | Forgetfulness | Humility | Love | Need | Peace | Pride | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice | Wisdom | World |
I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what he wishes; who unweariedly advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them.
Those who are versed in the history of their country, in the history of the human race, must know that rigorous state prosecutions have always preceded the era of convulsion; and this era, I fear, will be accelerated by the folly and madness of our rulers. If the people are discontented, the proper mode of quieting their discontent is, not by instituting rigorous and sanguinary prosecutions, but by redressing their wrongs and conciliating their affections. Courts of justice, indeed, may be called in to the aid of ministerial vengeance; but if once the purity of their proceedings is suspected, they will cease to be objects of reverence to the nation; they will degenerate into empty and expensive pageantry, and become the partial instruments of vexatious oppression. Whatever may become of me, my principles will last forever. Individuals may perish; but truth is eternal. The rude blasts of tyranny may blow from every quarter; but freedom is that hardy plant which will survive the tempest and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil.
Aid | Discontent | Era | Eternal | Folly | Freedom | History | Madness | People | Principles | Purity | Reverence | Truth | Tyranny | Will | Wisdom |
The doubts of love are never to be wholly overcome; they grow with its various anxieties, timidities, and tenderness, and are the very fruits of the reverence in which the admired object is beheld.
Love | Object | Reverence | Tenderness | Wisdom |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Tradition grows ever more venerable - the more remote its origin the more confused the origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation, until it becomes holy and inspires awe.
The finest fruit of serious learning should be the ability to speak the word God without reserve or embarrassment. And it should be spoken without adolescent resentment, rather with some sense of communion, with reverence and with joy.
Ability | God | Joy | Learning | Resentment | Reserve | Reverence | Sense | Wisdom | God |
Reverence for life does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone, even if he is very useful to the community in so doing. Reverence for life does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means... Reverence for life demands for all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others.
Art | Inspiration | Life | Life | Means | Reverence | Sacrifice | Scholar | Science | Wisdom |
Stewart Udall, Fully Stewart Lee Udall
The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the life-giving earth, and the Native American shared this elemental ethic: the land was alive to his loving touch, and he, its son, was brother to all creatures.
That is true humility to have a meane esteeme of himselfe out of a true apprehension of Gods greatnesse.
Saint Bonaventure, born John of Fidanza Bonaventure
That we may arrive at an understanding of the First Principle, which is most spiritual and eternal and above us, we ought to proceed through the traces which are corporeal and outside us; and this it to be led into the way of God. We ought next to enter into our minds, which are the eternal image of God, spiritual and internal; and this is to walk in the truth of God. We ought finally to pass over into that which is eternal, most spiritual, and above us, looking to the First Principle; and this is to rejoice in the knowledge of God and in the reverence of His majesty.
Eternal | God | Knowledge | Reverence | Truth | Understanding | God |
In spite of the fact that religion looks backward to revealed truth while science looks forward to new vistas and discoveries, both activities produce a sense of awe and a curious mixture of humility and arrogance in practitioners. All great scientists are inspired by the subtlety and beauty of the natural world that they are seeking to understand. Each new subatomic particle, every unexpected object, produces delight and wonderment. In constructing their theories, physicists are frequently guided by arcane concepts of elegance in the belief that the universe is intrinsically beautiful.
Arrogance | Awe | Beauty | Belief | Elegance | Humility | Looks | Object | Religion | Science | Sense | Theories | Truth | Universe | World | Beauty |