This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What makes people patient, so that they patiently bear hurt, reproach, slander, and abuse from others, and torments and assaults from the devil? Gratitude.
Love |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Love has cast me into a furnace, love has cast me into a furnace, I am cast into a furnace of love. My new Bridegroom, the loving Lamb, gave me the nuptial ring; then having cast me into prison, He cleft my heart, and my body fell to the ground. Those arrows, propelled by love, struck me and set me on fire. From peace He made war, and I am dying of sweetness. The darts rained so thick and fast, that I was all in agony. Then I took a buckler, but the shafts were so swift that it shielded me no more; they mangled my whole body, so strong was the arm that shot them. He shot them so powerfully, that I despaired of parrying them; and to escape death, I cried with all my might: 'Thou transgressest the laws of the camp.' But he only set up a new instrument of war, which overwhelmed me with fresh blows. So true was His aim, that He never missed. I was lying on the ground, unable to move my limbs. My whole body was broken, and I had no more sense than a man deceased; Deceased, not by a true death, but through excess of joy. Then regaining possession of my body, I felt so strong, that I could follow the guides who led me to the court of heaven.
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
What is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean, those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment.
Compassion | Family | Harm | Heart | Mercy | Prayer | Receive | Sorrow | Tears |
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
Every man is a liar, and no one is without sin except the one God. It has therefore been held that from man and woman, that is, through the mingling of their bodies, no one is thought to be without defect. But he who is without defect is also without this conception.
Let us allow God to act; He brings things to completion when we least expect it.
Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Your blasphemy, Salman, can't be forgiven. To set your words against the Words of God.
Size |
Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.
The Constitution did not confer upon the President the arbitrary power to suspend any of its provisions. On the contrary it gave him no powers except those expressly stated and those necessarily implied from them. The Constitution was written that way to restrain the President from tyranny.
Good | Government | Indispensable | Justice | Government |
Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances. Even if they are unhappy - very unhappy - it is astonishing how easily they can be prevented from finding it out, or at any rate from attributing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness.
Truth is generally kindness, but where the two diverge and collide, kindness should override truth.
That war transformed me from an ultra-pacifist to one willing to fight and sacrifice with my fellow countrymen in defense of the principle of living our own lives and working out our own destiny; and if there be a mad-man nation still, large or small, which will attempt to repeat that monumental crime I hope that the generations, perhaps yet unborn, of our self-governing civilized nations, may throw themselves with equal vigor in the battle to maintain the fundamental principles of freedom, justice and humanity.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered, than for what they have achieved.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The superiority of some men is merely local. - They are great because their associates are little.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a virtue.
Lying | Right | Temptation | Will | Temptation |