This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
One meets/greets people by their clothes, and says farewell by their mind.
Will |
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
We had an inspection today of the brigade. The Twenty-third was pronounced the crack regiment in appearance, ... [but] I could see only six to ten in a company of the old men. They all smiled as I rode by. But as I passed away I couldn’t help dropping a few natural tears. I felt as I did when I saw them mustered in at Camp Chase.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
There is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Desire | Error | Evil | Heart | Law | Pity | Poverty | Shame | Sin | Will |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
God is awakened in the soul. God breathes in the soul. Wisdom is more active than all active things. Oh, how happy is this soul that is ever conscious of God resting and reposing within its breast!
Care | God | Journey | Love | Means | Order | Respect | Rule | Soul | Spirit | Time | Respect | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
All these sensory means and exercises of the faculties must be left behind and in silence so that God Himself may affect the divine union of the soul. As a result one has to follow this method of disencumbering, emptying, and depriving the faculties of their natural rights and operations to make room for the inflow and illumination of the supernatural. If a person does not turn his eyes from his natural capacity, he will not attain to so lofty a communication; rather he will hinder it. If it is true that the soul must journey by knowing God through what He is not, rather than through what He is, it must journey, insofar as possible, by way of the denial and rejection of natural and supernatural apprehensions. This is our task now with the memory. We must draw it away from its natural props and capacities and raise it above itself (above all distinct knowledge and apprehensible possession) to supreme hope in the incomprehensible God. The annihilation of the memory in regard to all forms (including the five senses) is an absolute requirement for union with God. This union cannot be wrought without a complete separation of the memory from all forms that are not God. In great forgetfulness it is absorbed in a supreme good. Once he has the habit of union he no longer experiences these lapses of memory in matters concerning his moral and natural life. All the operations of the memory and other faculties in this state are divine.
Faith | Love | Progress | Purity | Reason | Sense | Simplicity | Soul | Will | Intellect |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Faith is the marriage of God and the Soul.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This dark, loving knowledge, which is faith, serves as a means for the divine union in this life as does the light of glory for the clear vision of God in the next. A person should not store up as treasures these visions, nor have the desire to cling to them. Our journey toward God must proceed through the negation of all. One should remain in emptiness and darkness regarding all creatures. He should base his love and joy on what he neither sees nor feels – that is, upon God who is incomprehensible and transcendent.
Affliction | Contemplation | Darkness | God | Light | Love | Mystical | Order | Perfection | Soul | Wisdom | God | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Ordinarily that which is of the greatest profit – namely, to be ever losing oneself and becoming as nothing – is considered the worst thing possible, and that which is of least worth, which is for the soul to find consolation and sweetness, is considered best. Secret contemplation is the science of love. It is an infused and loving knowledge of God, which enlightens the soul and at the same time enkindles it with love, until it is raised up step by step, even unto God its Creator. For it is love alone that unites and joins the soul with God.
Awareness | God | Knowing | Knowledge | Mind | Oblivion | Purity | Simplicity | Soul | Time | Will | God | Awareness | Think | Understand |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
Silence cuts off pretexts and causes for new thoughts, while within one’s walls it withers and wilts memories of things which used to concern us. When the old matters wither in the thought, the mind, in setting them aright, returns to its proper dignity.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The spiritual man is perceptive of the things of God, one who penetrates and judges all things, even the deep things of God.
Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The sickness of love is not cured except by Your very presence and image. The soul that loves God lives more in the next life than in this.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The first and principal benefit caused by the arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery. The soul learns to commune with God with more respect and more courtesy. God will enlighten the soul, giving it knowledge, not only of its lowliness and wretchedness, but of the greatness and excellence of God. He cleanses and frees the understanding that it may understand the truth. From the aridities and voids of this night of the desire, the soul draws spiritual humility. The soul is aware only of its own wretchedness – and esteems neighbors.
Darkness | God | Love | Soul | Spirit | Understanding | Companionship | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul is drawing nearer to Him, and so she has greater experience within herself of the void of God, of very heavy darkness, and of spiritual fire which dries up and purges her, so that thus purified she may be united with Him.
Body | Contemplation | Frailties | Freedom | God | Labor | Sense | Soul | Spirit | God | Contemplation |
Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.
It must not be assumed by the government through the agency of the public school system.