This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
Money enables a man to get food and drink, build a house, worship the Deity, serve devotees and holy men, and helps the poor when he happens to meet them. These are the good uses of money. Money is not meant for luxuries or creature comforts or for buying a position in society.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
He who has surrendered his body, mind, and innermost self to God is surely a holy man. He who has renounced 'woman and gold' is surely a holy man. He is a holy man who does not regard woman with the eyes of a worldly person. He never forgets to look upon a woman as his mother, and to offer her his worship if he happens to be near her. The holy man constantly thinks of God and does not indulge in any talk except about spiritual things. Furthermore, he serves all beings, knowing that God resides in everybody's heart. These, in general, are the signs of a holy man.
God | Knowing | Man | Regard | Self | Woman | Worship | God |
Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL
Brother: we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion, which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion.
Father | Love | Religion | Worship | Understand |
Red Jacket, aka Sagoyewatha NULL
Brother: continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind. And if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do you know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as for you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white man?
Knowledge | Means | People | Religion | Spirit | Understanding | Worship | Understand |
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
I cannot worship the abstractions of virtue: she only charms me when she addresses herself to my heart, speaks through the love from which she springs.
I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't. I think it would be a great meeting for parents curious about what's going on to attend,
Good | Government | Organization | Parents | Worship | Government | Think |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!'
Isocrates adviseth Demonicus, when he came to a strange city, to worship by all means the gods of the place.
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
Let poets piece prismatic words, Give me the jewelled joy of birds! What ecstasy moves them to sing? Is it the lyric glee of Spring, The dewy rapture of the rose? Is it the worship born in those Who are of Nature's self a part, The adoration of the heart? Is it the mating mood in them That makes each crystal note a gem? Oh mocking bird and nightingale, Oh mavis, lark and robin - hail! Tell me what perfect passion glows In your inspired arpeggios? A thrush is thrilling as I write Its obligato of delight; And in its fervour, as in mine, I fathom tenderness divine, And pity those of earthy ear Who cannot hear . . . who cannot hear. Let poets pattern pretty words: For lovely largesse - bless you, Birds!
Ecstasy | Joy | Passion | Pity | Self | Tenderness | Worship |
Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn
The Perils of Worship - The life without reverence is barren and insensitive. And worship is the proper expression of reverence. The Sermon on the Mount leads to adoration, thanksgiving, and prayer as truly as it leads to acts of service. But there are perils in worship. Some of the worship that goes on in our churches is merely lip service, talk takes the place of activity. True worship is the expression of the reverence of a human personality for his Lord and Creator. Reverence makes us eager to serve and obey. But false worship and lip service can be worse then open defiance. The story is told of Mark Twain's encounter with a man who managed to combine the appearances of piety with a predatory career in business. "Before I die," said the hypocrite, "I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud." "I have a better idea," answered Mark Twain. "Why don't you stay right at home in Boston and keep them?" After the warmth of the worship that says, "Lord, Lord," there is a chill in the words, "Do what I say." But if we do not meet the chill, the warmth is not the warmth of life. Bishop Gore ended his book, The Sermon on the Mount, by saying: "Many will come to him in that day with a record of their orthodoxy and of their observances, of their brilliant successes in his professed service; but he will protest unto them, 'I never knew you.' He 'knows' no man in whom he cannot recognize his own likeness." (The Sermon on the Mount by Charles Gore, p. 188. John Murray Ltd., London) His own likeness? If we understand the Sermon on the Mount, we will never claim that. But if it sinks in, it does begin to remake us.
Better | Day | Life | Life | Lord | Man | Personality | Piety | Prayer | Protest | Reverence | Right | Service | Story | Will | Worship | Understand |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Thou art wise. And wisdom is the fount of life and from Thee it welleth, And by the side of Thy wisdom all human knowledge turneth to folly. Thou art wise, more ancient than all primal things, And wisdom was the nursling at Thy side. Thou art wise, and Thou hast not learnt from any beside Thee, Nor acquired wisdom from any save Thyself. Thou art wise, and from Thy wisdom Thou hast set apart Thy appointed purpose, Like a craftsman and an artist To draw up the films of Being from Nothingness As light is drawn that darteth from the eye: Without bucket from the fountain of light hath Thy workman drawn it up, And without tool hath he wrought, Hewing, graving, cleansing, refining, Calling unto the void and it was cleft, And unto existence and it was urged, And to the universe and it was spread out; Establishing the clouds of the heavens And with his hand joining together the pavilions of the spheres, And fastening with the loops of power the tent-folds of creation, For the might of his hand extendeth to the uttermost borders, "Linking the uttermost ends."
Art | Distinction | Glory | God | Lord | Reason | Right | Unity | Worship | Art | God |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
My heart craves to praise Thee, But I am unable. Would my understanding Were as spacious as Solomon’s. Without it my wisdom As yet ill suffices For expounding Thy wonders And Thy deeds of beneficence Wrought for me and all mankind. Without Thee all’s hopeless, And where is the rock Sustaining, suspending The weight of the world? I am as one orphaned; Nay, on Thee I am cast. What then can I do But look to Thee, wait on Thee, In whose hand is the spirit Of all that is living, In whose hand is the breath Of all the creation?
Awe | Day | Earth | Ecstasy | Faith | God | Lord | Love | Loyalty | Loyalty | Man | Melody | Mission | Peace | People | Purpose | Purpose | Redemption | Reverence | Sacred | Service | Trust | Unique | Vows | Wonder | World | Worship | God | Blessed |
God created one human being, who was male and female. That means ultimately all of us are interconnected. That there is one God means we are all connected. Individual well-being depends on the greater well-being of everyone. There is no separation. This is a call for inclusion. Jews see it as including the weaker, the marginal, the orphans, the stranger. We were slaves in Egypt. Our task is not to replicate Egyptian power. We are free so we can operate differently, and not replicate slavery. Judaism is a complex, ongoing civilization, in which there is more than one view. Judaism is a religion of interpretation. We believe interpretation is part of the unfolding of creation and Divine creativity. Our interpretive tradition draws a connection between spirituality and social justice.
God | History | Literature | Meditation | Men | Mindfulness | Mystical | Mysticism | Work | World | Worship | God | Old | Think |
Margaret Fuller, fully Sara Margaret Fuller, Marchese Ossoli
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, And in the forms of gods and heroes wrought Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone — A higher charm than modern culture won, With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, Gifted to analyze, dissect explore. A many-colored light flows from our sun; Art, 'neath its beams a motley thread has spun; The prison modifies the perfect day; But thou hast known such mediums to shun, And cast once more on life a pure white ray. Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, Forgetting daily self, my truest friend I find.
Angels | Dawn | Distrust | Gall | Hope | Means | Men | Will | World | Worship |
Philip Sidney, fully Sir Philip Sidney
Nor envy's snaky eye, finds harbour here, Nor flatterers' venomous insinuations, Nor cunning humorists' puddled opinions, Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury, Nor time prattled away, cradle of ignorance, Nor causeless duty, nor comber of arrogance, Nor trifling title of vanity dazzleth us, Nor golden manacles stand for a paradise
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
They had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.'
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.
Worship |
They say that the Dead die not, but remain near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, in wise majestic melancholy train, and watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, and men, coming and going on the earth.
The body of the Word, then, being a real human body, in spite of its having been uniquely formed from a virgin, was of itself mortal and, like other bodies, liable to death. But the indwelling of the Word loosed it from this natural liability, so that corruption could not touch it. Thus is happened that two opposite marvels took place at once: the death of all was consummated in the Lord's body; yet, because the Word was in it, death and corruption were in the same act utterly abolished.
Church | Faith | God | Good | Jealousy | Present | Reality | Struggle | Time | Will | Worship | God |