This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.
How do drugs, hygiene, and animal magnetism heal? It may be affirmed that they do not heal, but only relieve suffering temporarily, exchanging one disease for another.
He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.
The hold which comptrollers of money are able to maintain on productive forces is seen to be more powerful when it is remembered that, although money is supposed to represent the real wealth of the world, there is always much more wealth that there is money, and real wealth is often compelled to wait upon money, thus leading to that most paradoxical situation - a world filled with wealth but suffering want.
Ulysses S. Grant, fully Ulysses Simpson Grant, born Hiram Ulysses Grant
Too long denial of guaranteed right is sure to lead to revolution - bloody revolution, where suffering must fall upon the innocent as well as the guilty.
Revolution | Right | Suffering | Wisdom |
Edward Hoagland, fully Edward Morley Hoagland
Any careful study of living things, whether wolves, bears or man, reminds one of the same direct truth; also of the clarity of the fact that evolution itself is obviously not some process of drowning being clutching at straws and climbing from suffering and trail and virtual expiration to tenuous, momentary survival. Rather, evolution has been a matter of days well-lived, chameleon strength, energy, zappy sex, sunshine stored up, inventiveness, competitiveness, and the whole fun of busy brain cells.
Energy | Evolution | Fun | Man | Strength | Study | Suffering | Survival | Truth | Wisdom |
To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness; to appear cheerful and amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst desponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life.
Adversity | Circumstances | Gloom | God | Happy | Life | Life | Nothing | Submission | Suffering | Will | Wisdom | God |
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the 'thorn in the flesh' is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.
Defects | Imperfection | Life | Life | Light | Perfection | Progress | Suffering | Wholeness | Wisdom |
Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche or Nyoshul Khenpo Jamyang Dorje
The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness, like they who lick the honey from a razor’s edge. How pitiful they who cling strongly to concrete reality: turn your attention within, my heart friends.
Attention | Heart | Nature | Perception | Reality | Regard | Suffering | Wisdom |
Karl Marx (1818-1883) German Philosopher, Socialist and Friedrich Engels
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.