This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Man's great guilt does not lie in the sins he commits, for temptation is great and his strength is limited. Man's great guilt lies in the fact that he can turn away from evil at any moment, and yet he does not.
Evil | Guilt | Man | Strength | Temptation | Temptation |
What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
They whose guilt within their bosom lies imagine every eye beholds their blame.
We're basically an illiterate society sexually. We're not well educated. We're not much better educated than our parents, and even though sex is merchandised and exploited, there is very little sexuality education available in American schools. It is almost as though we had to repay our guilt for exploiting sex so explicitly in our society by preserving a shroud of ignorance.
Convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charges against an accused out of his own mouth.
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
When teachers are at their best they display a common orientation: they do not believe in the power of pontification. They neither preach nor moralize. They give no guilt and demand no promises... are not preoccupied with the child's past history or distant future, they deal with the present. What matters to them is the here and now of the child in distress.
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
Sin is a technique of the pseudo-religions. A true religion has no need of the concept at all. The pseudo-religion cannot live without the concept of sin, because sin is the technique of creating guilt in people.
John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason
When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace.
Doctrine | Duty | Fear | God | Guilt | Light | Lord | Mystery | God |
Karl Jaspers, fully Karl Theodor Jaspers
But each one of us is guilty insofar as he remained inactive. The guilt of passivity is different. Impotence excuses; no moral law demands a spectacular death. Plato already deemed it a matter of course to go into hiding in desperate times of calamity, and to survive. But passivity knows itself morally guilty of every failure, every neglect to act whenever possible, to shield the imperiled, to relieve wrong, to countervail. Impotent submission always left a margin of activity which, though not without risk, could still be cautiously effective. Its anxious omission weighs upon the individual as moral guilt. Blindness for the misfortune of others, lack of imagination of the heart, inner differences toward the witnessed evil--that is moral guilt.
Guilt | Imagination | Individual | Law | Misfortune | Moral law | Neglect | Submission | Misfortune | Guilty |
Karl Jaspers, fully Karl Theodor Jaspers
Metaphysical guilt is the lack of absolute solidarity with the human being as such--an indelible claim beyond morally meaningful duty. This solidarity is violated by my presence at a wrong or a crime. It is not enough that I cautiously risk my life to prevent it; if it happens, and I was there, and if I survive where the other is killed, I know from a voice within myself: I am guilty of being still alive.
Absolute | Enough | Guilt | Life | Life | Risk | Wrong | Guilty |
Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
Men's minds are too ingenious in palliating guilt in themselves.
Guilt |
Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
Men's minds are too ready to excuse guilt in themselves.
Guilt |