This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Not enough attention is paid to the negative side of fashion. Great effort is exerted to make people look smart, but somebody should face the fact that a lot of people never will be smart, and that they should be given some assistance in maintaining their fascinating dowdiness.
Inscribe all human effort with one word, artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete!
Effort |
Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.
Effort |
Saying that spiritual practices train our minds, shape our consciousness and mold our character can sum this up. We undertake spiritual practice in order to change in some way, even if it is only a change of perspective. In more traditional language we undertake spiritual practices because they bring us closer to God’s will. How does this work? Spiritual practices including meditation (whether the object of attention is set at the breath, bodily sensations, a visualization, a mantra, a prayer or at floating open attention), and mitzvoth like Shabbat, Kashrut, and Torah study, and conscious non-harming speech share a similar technology. One commits to a particular action as the focus of one’s energy, attention, time, and behavior. One articulates this intention. Then one waits. Soon, the obstacles appear. In a sitting meditation practice we may intend to follow each in breath and each out breath. No sooner do we begin then thoughts rush in or we find ourselves nodding sleepily or in a state of anxiety regarding the pain in our knee or lower back. Or we have decided to observe the Sabbath and an invitation comes our way that is irresistible. Or we promise ourselves to observe kashruth and a strong desire arises to taste the forbidden. Often rationalizing thoughts obscuring the clarity of the original intention surround these temptations. The training occurs in the next step, the step of renunciation or returning. We see the temptation. We acknowledge it in a non-judgmental and non-personal way realizing that we are seeing forgetfulness in the human mind. As we bring attention to the temptation we see that it has no substance. Each time we do this, the ability to choose is strengthened. Each time we return from distraction or obstacle, the power of habit and unconsciousness is weakened. In this process we begin to see the nature of our minds and the nature of reality itself. We increase our ability to pay attention. And what do we begin to notice? We observe the arising and passing away of thoughts, sensations, sounds, desires, feelings, and moods just as daylight passes and evening comes. We see the consequences of various forms of contraction in the mind or body like fear, desire, suppression, judgment, anger, and aggression. We see the consequences of various forms of expansion like, trust, ease, relaxation, acceptance, generosity and gratitude.
Ability | Aggression | Aims | Effort | Eternal | Existence | Experience | Habit | Hope | Joy | Language | Love | Order | Practice | Prayer | Qualities | Question | Receive | Relationship | Self | Sense | Suffering | Understanding | Will |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
Trust the people -- that is the crucial lesson of history.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Trust means you're ready to risk what you currently have.
Effort |
The Indian Seer lost God in Nature; the Christian mystic, on the other hand, finds God in Nature. The Hindu mystic believes that God and Nature are one and the same; the Christian mystic knows that there must be a Creator to account for the universe.
Desire | Effort | God | Life | Life | Prayer | Spirit | God |
O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it.
Art | Comfort | Day | Desire | Effort | Friend | Good | Health | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Strength | Trust | World | Art | Think |
You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.
Effort |
Man's condition is never the same; he is humbled, then exalted; sometimes at peace, sometimes persecuted; enlightened today and plunged into darkness tomorrow. What is to be done? As I said, let us be prepared for whatever may happen.
Any one may say that the organizations of labor invade or deny liberty to the workmen. But go to the men who worked in the bituminous coal mines twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, for a dollar or a dollar and twenty five cents, and who now work eight hours a day and whose wages have increased 70 per cent. in the past seven years -- go tell those men that they have lost their liberty and they will laugh at you.
Better | Children | Effort | Ignorance | Life | Life | Man | Opportunity | Spirit | Worth |
I beg to say in reply that if it be decided by both the colored and white workers of your city [Austin] that it would tend to the best interests of the movement to organize separate central bodies there is no reason why such a course should not be pursued.
Authority | Effort | Improvement | Law | Men | Opportunity | Guilty |