This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life - it points to another world. Political or professional reputation cannot last forever, but a conscience void of offense before God and man is an inheritance for eternity.
Conscience | Eternity | God | Inheritance | Life | Life | Man | Offense | Reputation | Wisdom | World | God |
No matter! – so long as the world is the work of eternal goodness, and so long as conscience has not deceived us – to give happiness, and to do good, there is our only law, our anchor of salvation, our beacon light, our reason for existing. All religions may crumble away; so long as this survives we have still an ideal, and life is worth living.
Conscience | Eternal | Good | Law | Life | Life | Light | Reason | Salvation | Work | World | Worth |
Nobody can, even for the sake of unity, do violence to his conscience and to truth itself. Whoever in conscience feels obliged to understand the Word of God in a certain way cannot and may not declare he understands it otherwise.
Conscience | God | Truth | Unity | God | Understand |
E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson
Nothing comes harder than original thought. Even the most gifted scientist spends only a tiny fraction of his waking hours doing it, probably less than one tenth of one percent. the rest of the time his mind hugs the coast of the known, reworking old information, adding lesser data, giving reluctant attention to the ideas of others (what use can I make of them?), warming lazily to the memory of successful experiments, and looking for a problem - always looking for a problem, something that can be accomplished, that will lead somewhere, anywhere.
Attention | Giving | Ideas | Memory | Mind | Nothing | Rest | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | Old |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
Conscience is the spiritual, supernatural principle in man, and it is not of social origin at all. It is rather the perversion and confusion of conscience that is of social origin.
Conscience | Man |
Tennessee Williams, fully Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams
In memory everything seems to happen to music.
Before crime is committed, conscience must be corrupted.
Conscience | Crime |
To live by the code of “do as you please regardless” is to become a prisoner of your own moral corruption. It is to be troubled by guilt and tormented by the inconsistency of living contrary to the demands of your own conscience and moral nature. You simply cannot be satisfied while ignoring any part of your nature.
Conscience | Corruption | Guilt | Inconsistency | Nature |
Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
Among all the strange things that men have forgotten, the most universal and catastrophic lapse of memory is that by which they have forgotten that they are living on a star.
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
Memory | Temptation | Temptation |
Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin
Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment – originating in the social instinct, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in alter times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit.
Conscience | Feelings | Habit | Instinct | Men | Reason | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Sentiment | Instruction |
Frederick Copleston, fully Frederick Charles Copleston
If our conscience tells us that we ought to perform a particular act, it is our moral duty to perform it.
Conscience | Duty |
Eric D’Arcy, fully Joseph Eric D'Arcy
A person who holds for the moral authority of conscience will also hold for the individual’s freedom to follow his conscience without interference from the State.
Authority | Conscience | Freedom | Individual | Will |
[In memory of Dad] Do not stand by my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep – I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. Do not stand by my grave an cry. I am not there. I did not die.
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America NULL
The principle of competition appears to be nothing more than a partially conventionalized embodiment of primeval selfishness... the supremacy of the motive of self-interest... The Christian conscience can be satisfied with nothing less than the complete substitution of motives of mutual helpfulness and goodwill for the motive of private gain.
Competition | Conscience | Helpfulness | Motives | Nothing | Self | Self-interest | Selfishness |
Religious faith must link us to communities of shared memory and shared hope with which we can join in symbolizing our human condition and in enacting the visions that can animate give new life. Religious faith cannot be reduced to the ethical or to the merely utilitarian. But, as part of this larger and indispensable contribution that religious faith can provide to making and keeping life human, it needs also to be held accountable for the renewal and extension of a universal covenant with being. It needs to be held accountable for its broader contribution to good faith on earth.
Earth | Faith | Good | Hope | Indispensable | Life | Life | Memory |