This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal
Whatever your hand finds to do with your strength, do it, for there is no deed, nor account, nor knowledge... That is, what a man does not do while he still has the power that His Creator has given him (the power of choice that is given to him to employ during his lifetime, when he can exercise free will and is commanded to do so) he will not again have the opportunity of doing in the grave and in the pit, for at that time he will no longer possess this power. For one who has not multiplied good deeds in his lifetime will not have the opportunity of performing them afterwards. And one who has not taken an accounting of his deeds will not have time to do so later. And one who has not become wise in this world will not become wise in the grave. This is the intent of ... for there is no deed nor account nor knowledge nor wisdom in the pit to which you are going.
Choice | Deeds | Good | Grave | Knowledge | Man | Opportunity | Power | Time | Will | Wise | World | Deeds |
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
At the end of time, which is now, God will send One who will explain again everything that has been explained before, by all of the 124,000 Prophets of God, over and over again, throughout the ages, but this time with no veils. Everyone will hear it. Everyone will understand it. And all that will be left is do you want it. Do you want an eternal life of "Oneness with" God, or an eternal life of "separation from" God. The choice is yours.
Choice | Eternal | God | Life | Life | Time | Will | God | Understand |
Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
Sometimes we can choose the paths we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all.
Choice |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
A man's wisdom is most conspicuous where he is able to distinguish among dangers and make choice of the least.
Choice | Distinguish | Wisdom |
These features chiefly interest the scientific man, the thinker and reasoner. There is another feature which affords us still more satisfaction and enjoyment, and which is of still more universal interest, chiefly because of its bearing upon the welfare of mankind. Gentlemen, there is an influence which is getting strong and stronger day by day, which shows itself more and more in all departments of human activity, and influence most fruitful and beneficial—the influence of the artist. It was a happy day for the mass of humanity when the artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or—whatnot—a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one's pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development.
Choice | Day | Desire | Freedom | Happy | Humanity | Influence | Pleasure | Study |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
True freedom consists in performing all actions - eating, reading, working, and so forth - in accordance with right judgment and choice of will, not in being compelled by habits. Eat what you should eat and not necessarily what you are used to. Do what you ought to do, not what your bad habits dictate. It's only when you discard bad habits that you are really a free man.
Painting, like any art, comprises a technique, a workmanlike handling of material, but the accuracy of a tone and the felicitous combination of effects depend entirely on the choice made by the artist.
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
What is a neglected child? He is a child not planned for, not wanted. Neglect begins, therefore, before he is born.
Our time on earth is sacred presence, and we should celebrate every second of it... Over-anxiety ultimately banishes every trace of joy from life… Our contradictions. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived… Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station.
Birth | Earth | Experience | Future | Hurry | Joy | Life | Life | Money | Neglect | People | Present | Sacred | Time | Think |
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
Two halves have little choice but to join; And yes, they do make a whole but two wholes when they coincide... That is beauty. That is love.
Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger
His consuming interest remains in the world of men, their institutions, their history, their passions. And because he is interested in men, nothing that men do can be altogether tedious...He will naturally be interested in the events that engage men’s ultimate beliefs, their moments of tragedy and grandeur and ecstasy. But he will also be fascinated by the commonplace, the everyday. He will know reverence, but this reverence will not prevent him from wanting to see and to understand. He may sometimes feel revulsion or contempt , but this will also not deter him from wanting to have his questions answered. ...in his quest for understanding, moves through the world of men without respect for the usual lines of demarcation. Nobility ad degradation, power and obscurity, intelligence and folly -- these are equally interesting to him, however unequal they may be in his personal values or tastes. This his questions may lead him to all possible levels of society, the best and least known places, the most respected and the most despised. ...he will find himself in all these places because his own questions have so taken possession of him that he has little choice but to seek for answers.
Choice | Contempt | Events | Folly | Intelligence | Little | Men | Nobility | Nothing | Power | Respect | Reverence | Tragedy | Will | World | Respect |
Nothing has harmed the quality of individual life in modern society more than the misbegotten belief that human suffering is driven by biological and genetic causes and can be rectified by taking drugs or undergoing electroshock therapy. ... If I wanted to ruin someone's life, I would convince the person that that biological psychiatry is right - that relationships mean nothing, that choice is impossible, and that the mechanics of a broken brain reign over our emotions and conduct. If I wanted to impair an individual's capacity to create empathetic, loving relationships, I would prescribe psychiatric drugs, all of which blunt our highest psychological and spiritual functions.
Belief | Capacity | Choice | Emotions | Individual | Life | Life | Right | Society | Suffering | Society |
Medicine is a strange mixture of speculation and action. We have to cultivate a science and to exercise an art. The calls of science are upon our leisure and our choice the calls of practice are of daily emergence and necessity.
Choice | Leisure | Practice | Science | Speculation |
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
In such a culture, material values naturally become paramount, beginning with omnipotent wealth and ending with all the values that satisfy man's physiological needs and material comfort. Sensory utility and pleasure... become the sole criteria of what is good and bad... A further consequence of such a system of truth is the development of a temporalistic, relativistic, and nihilistic mentality. The sensory world is in a state of incessant flux and becoming. There is nothing unchangeable in it - not even an eternal Supreme Being. Mind dominated by the truth of the senses simply cannot perceive any permanency, but apprehends all values in terms of shift and transformation. Sensate mentality views everything from the standpoint of evolution and progress. This leads to an increasing neglect of the eternal values, which come to be replaced by temporary, or short-time, considerations. Sensate society lives in, and appreciates mainly, the present. Since the past is irretrievable and no longer exists, while the future is not yet here and is uncertain, only the present moment is real and desirable.
Beginning | Eternal | Evolution | Future | Good | Mind | Neglect | Nothing | Past | Present | Society | System | Truth | Wealth | World | Society |
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
A further consequence of such a system of truth is the development of a temporalistic, relativistic, and nihilistic mentality. The sensory world is in a state of incessant flux and becoming. There is nothing unchangeable in it - not even an eternal Supreme Being. Mind dominated by the truth of the senses simply cannot perceive any permanency, but apprehends all values in terms of shift and transformation. Sensate mentality views everything from the standpoint of evolution and progress. This leads to an increasing neglect of the eternal values, which come to be replaced by temporary, or short-time, considerations. Sensate society lives in, and appreciates mainly, the present. Since the past is irretrievable and no longer exists, while the future is not yet here and is uncertain, only the present moment is real and desirable.
Eternal | Evolution | Future | Mind | Neglect | Nothing | Past | Present | Society | System | Truth | World | Society |
Pierre-Simon Laplace, Compte de Laplace, Marquis de Laplace
It is natural for man to relate the units of distance by which he travels to the dimensions of the globe that he inhabits. Thus, in moving about the earth, he may know by the simple denomination of distance its proportion to the whole circuit of the earth. This has the further advantage of making nautical and celestial measurements correspond. The navigator often needs to determine, one from the other, the distance he has traversed from the celestial arc lying between the zeniths at his point of departure and at his destination. It is important, therefore, that one of these magnitudes should be the expression of the other, with no difference except in the units. But to that end, the fundamental linear unit must be an aliquot part of the terrestrial meridian... Thus, the choice of the meter was reduced to that of the unity of angles.