This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
That the truths of the Bible have the power of awakening an intense moral feeling in every human being; that they make bad men good, and send a pulse of healthful feeling through all the domestic, civil, and social relations; that they teach men to love right, and hate wrong, and seek each other's welfare as children of a common parent; that they control the baleful passions of the heart, and thus make men proficient in self-government; and finally that they teach man to aspire after conformity to a being of infinite holiness, and fill him with hopes more purifying, exalted, and suited to his nature than any other book the world has ever known - these are facts as incontrovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demonstrations of mathematics.
Awakening | Bible | Children | Conformity | Control | Good | Government | Hate | Heart | Love | Man | Mathematics | Men | Nature | Philosophy | Power | Right | Self | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | Bible | Truths |
Short, isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient wisdom delighted to convey its precepts for the regulation of human conduct.
Conduct | Regulation | Wisdom |
Holy, humble, penitent, believing, earnest, persevering prayer is never lost; it always prevails to the accomplishment of the thing sought, or that with which the suppliant will be better satisfied in the end, according to the superior wisdom of his heavenly father, in which he trusts.
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.
Experience | Life | Life | Wisdom |
Of all human pursuits the pursuit of wisdom is the most perfect, the most sublime, the most profitable, the most delightful.
Wisdom |
Whatever it is that we value in life – relationships, creativity, learning, aesthetic experience, food, sex, travel – the call to seize the day is the call to appreciate these things while we can and not to put them off indefinitely. Some things require work and time, and often the best choice is not to do today everything you want to do before you die. The true spirit of carpe diem is not to panic and try to do everything now, but to make sure every day counts. The wisdom of carpe diem is that time is short, this is the only life we have and we should not squander it.
Aesthetic | Choice | Creativity | Day | Experience | Learning | Life | Life | Panic | Spirit | Time | Wisdom | Work | Value |
The weak have remedies, the wise have joys; superior wisdom is superior bliss.
We live in a biochemical, neurophysiological, resonant quantum soup. If this is true, the responsibility for what we have for our inner life is enormous, and extends far beyond one’s own personal and spiritual development. Whatever our inner experience might be in terms of love and passion, hate and greed, abundance and longing, or any other human qualities may well not be ours alone.
Abundance | Experience | Greed | Hate | Life | Life | Longing | Love | Passion | Qualities | Responsibility |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.
Books of quotations are an elemental model of how culture is perpetuated, the wisdom of the tribe passed on to posterity, to be added to, edited, and modified by subsequent generations.
Joseph Zabara, fully Joseph ben Meïr Zabara
Love is the best relationship, wisdom the best pedigree.
Love | Pedigree | Relationship | Wisdom |
Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
The first key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning… for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
Despise | Music | Philosophy | Revelation | Wisdom | World |
Seize wisdom ere ‘tis torment to be wise; that is, seize wisdom ere she seizes thee.