This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down.
To say that people have a moral sense is not the same thing as saying that they are innately good. A moral sense must compete with other senses that are natural to humans - the desire to survive, acquire possessions, indulge in sex, or accumulate power - in short, with self-interest narrowly defined. How that struggle is resolved will differ depending on our character, our circumstances, and the cultural and political tendencies of the day. But saying that a moral sense exists is the same thing as saying that humans, by their nature, are potentially good.
Character | Circumstances | Day | Desire | Good | Nature | People | Possessions | Power | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Struggle | Will |
We are always looking for pleasure, frantically seeking happiness in many ways, and totally missing the simplest, most fundamental pleasure, which actually is also the greatest pleasure: just being here. When we are really present, the presence itself is made out of fullness, contentment and blissful pleasure... Happiness, value, and pleasure are not he result of anything. These qualities are part of our fundamental nature.
Contentment | Nature | Pleasure | Present | Qualities | Wisdom | Happiness |
Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe
I think the enemy is here before us... I think the enemy is simple selfishness and compulsive greed... I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our home land.
Character | Earth | Enemy | Greed | Land | Selfishness | Wealth | Think |
Peace comes to us through love, understanding of our fellow men, faith. Peace does not include selfishness nor indifference. Peace is never wrapped at a counter for a price. It is earned by giving of ourselves.
Character | Faith | Giving | Indifference | Love | Men | Peace | Price | Selfishness | Understanding |
Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe
The enemy is single selfishness and compulsive greed... I think the enemy comes to us with the face of innocence and says to us: “I am your friend.”
Character | Enemy | Friend | Greed | Innocence | Selfishness | Think |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
It is with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace... Even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him!
Battle | Desire | Fear | Love | Man | Men | Nature | Peace | Pleasure | War | Wisdom |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Time takes no holiday. It does not roll idly by, but through our senses works its own wonders in the mind. Time came and went from one day to the next; in its coming and its passing it brought me other hopes and other memories.
Eugene P. Bertin, fully Eugene Peter Bertin
Honest work bears a lovely face for it is the father of pleasure and the mother of good fortune. It is the keystone of prosperity and the sire of fame. And best of all, work is relief from sorrow and the handmaiden of happiness.
Fame | Father | Fortune | Good | Mother | Pleasure | Prosperity | Sorrow | Wisdom | Work |
It is a paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. As a matter of experience, we find that true happiness comes in seeking other things, in the manifold activities of life, in the healthful outgoing of all human powers.
Experience | Life | Life | Paradox | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Wisdom | Happiness |
Though selfishness hath defiled the whole man, yet sensual pleasure is the chief part of its interest, and therefore by the senses it commonly works, and these are the doors and the windows by which iniquity entereth the soul.
Man | Pleasure | Selfishness | Soul | Wisdom |
Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Body | Health | Individual | Liberty | Man | Pleasure | Society | Wisdom | Happiness |
William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Body | Health | Individual | Liberty | Man | Pleasure | Society | Wisdom | Happiness |