This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Roy L. Smith, aka Mr. Methodist
The ability to accept responsibility is the measure of the person.
The most elementary ethical principle, when understood by the heart, means that out of reverence for the unfathomable, infinite, and living Reality we call God, we must never consider ourselves strangers toward any human being. Rather, we must bind ourselves to the task of sharing his experiences and try being of help to him.
The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.
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 |
Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen
Prayer is not just the informing of God of our needs, for He already knows them. God does not show Himself equally to all creatures. This does not mean that he has favorites, that He decides to help some and to abandon others, but the difference occurs because it is impossible for Him to manifest Himself to certain hearts under the conditions they set up. The sunlight plays no favorites, but its reflection is very different on a lake and on a swamp.
God | Prayer | Reflection | God |
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
The primary indication… of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.
It’s supposed to be a professional secret, but I’ll tell you anyway. We doctors do nothing. We only help and encourage the doctor within.
Nothing |
Unknown Aboriginal Australian NULL
If you’re coming to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
Obert C. Tanner, fully Obert Clark Tanner
Perhaps the clearest and deepest meaning of brotherhood is the ability to imagine yourself in the other person’s position, and then treat that person as if you were him. This form of brotherhood takes a lot of imagination, a great deal of sympathy, and a tremendous amount of understanding.
Ability | Brotherhood | Imagination | Meaning | Position | Sympathy | Understanding |
Wealth and honor, benefits and blessings shall enrich my life; poverty and failures, grief and anxiety shall help fulfill it. In my life, I will serve heaven and earth; in death I will find peace.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Blessings | Death | Earth | Grief | Heaven | Honor | Life | Life | Peace | Poverty | Wealth | Will |
Creativity is the retention throughout life of something that belongs properly to infant experience: the ability to create the world. . . . By creative living I mean not getting killed or annihilated all the time by compliance or by reacting to the world that impinges; I mean seeing everything afresh all the time… When we are surprised at ourselves we are being creative, and we find we can trust our own unexpected originality.
Ability | Compliance | Creativity | Experience | Life | Life | Originality | Time | Trust | World |
David Bohm, fully David Joseph Bohm
What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of common meaning.
There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb himself.
People |
Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman
It is no longer enough to be smart — all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential.
Ability | Enough | Guarantee | Heart | Integration | Knowledge | Meaning | Wisdom | World | Value |