This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Errors and exaggerations do not matter. What matters is boldness in thinking with a; strong-pitched voice, in speaking out about things as one feels them in the moment of speaking; in having the temerity to proclaim what one believes to be true without fear of the consequences. If one were to await the possession of the absolute truth, one must be either a fool or a mute. If the creative impulse were muted, the world would then be stayed on its march.
Absolute | Boldness | Consequences | Fear | Impulse | Thinking | Truth | World |
Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian
The first of all beautiful things is the continual possession of God.
God |
There is basically one problem in life: congestion. There is basically one solution: circulation. Systemic giving is, therefore, a powerful practice that blesses every phase of our lives, as it keeps us attuned to the wealth of the universe.
With your money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.
Rinzai, aka Lin- Chi Yi-Sen, Lin-chi I-hsuan, Rinzai Gigen, Venerable Master Lin Chi NULL
When hungry I eat; when tired, I sleep. Fools laugh at me. The wise understand.
Wise |
With money in your pocket, you are wise and handsome, and you sing well too.
Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness; it sells the country to softness and vanity, and takes away from the state all its citizens, to make them slaves one to another, and one and all to public opinion.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
Prosperity does not exalt the wise man, nor does adversity cast him down.
Adversity | Man | Prosperity | Wise |
Why must man meet this lovely day with solemn face and anxious knee? All the earth quivers in the ray of the kind sun, and only he walks down-eyed. More wise than we is every bud and bloom and pod. These hold Creations’ secret key - “Be still, and know that I am God.”
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due. Reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend: it produces more labor and more talent than twice the wealth of a country could ever rear up. It is the coin of genius, and it is the imperious duty of every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the wisest economy.
Duty | Important | Justice | Labor | Life | Life | Man | Men | Praise | Reputation | Wealth | Talent |
The world has the wealth and resources to provide everyone the opportunity to live a decent life. We consume too much when market relationships displace the bonds of community, compassion, culture, and place. We consume too much when consumption becomes an end in itself and makes us lose affection and reverence for the natural world.
Compassion | Culture | Life | Life | Opportunity | Reverence | Wealth | World |