This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
Worth |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Circumstances | Giving | Man | Men |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing; the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way.
Circumstances | Giving |
[The] great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes [err].
Friendship, affection is not acquired by giving presents. Friendship, affection comes about by two people sharing a significant moment, by having an experience in common.
Experience | Giving | People |
Life without commitment is not worth living.
Commitment | Life | Life | Worth |
B. H. Liddell Hart, fully Captain B. H. Liddell
Be very careful never to show your own bias to anyone who is giving you information, or passing it on to you. Once he sees that you have a particular inclination he will instinctively tend to tell you what he thinks will suit you, and enhance your opinion of him.
Giving | Inclination | Opinion | Will |
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
Prayer is an expression of man’s inner yearning for a response in the awful silence of the universe. It is a unique process of discovery whereby the searching ego affirms itself in the very moment of self-negation, and thus discovers its own worth and justification as a dynamic factor in the life of the universe.
Discovery | Dynamic | Ego | Justification | Life | Life | Man | Prayer | Self | Silence | Unique | Universe | Worth | Discovery |
Damien Hess, stage name MC Frontalot
Service... Giving what you don't have to give. Giving when you don't need to give. Giving because you want to give.
The ultimate grounding of obligation, and finally of all morality, is a single but universal relationship between each and all… a sense of duty grounded in the recognition of the intrinsic worth of persons.
Duty | Morality | Obligation | Relationship | Sense | Worth |