This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Believe that you are receiving answers to your prayers. Belief tends to create that which is held in the mind by faith.
The belief in immortality depends finally upon the belief in God. If there exists a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of mankind toward perfection; and if there be no progress of men towards perfection, then there cannot be a good and wise God. We cannot suppose that God’s moral government, the beginnings of which we see in the world and in ourselves, will cease when we leave this life.
Belief | God | Good | Government | Immortality | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Perfection | Progress | Will | Wise | World |
Faith is belief, and belief has, over and above its intellectual character, an aspect of irmness, persistence, and subjective certainty.
Belief | Character | Faith | Persistence |
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.
Robert Bellah, fully Robert Neelly Bellah
It was the deep belief of the founders of the republic could succeed only with virtuous citizens. Only if there was a moral law within would citizens be able to maintain a free government.
Belief | Government | Law | Moral law |
True religion is a matter for belief and not for controversies. It is a matter of experience and not of historical or philosophical demonstrations.
Belief | Experience | Religion |
Richard Jefferies, fully John Richard Jefferies
How can I adequately express my contempt for the assertion that all things occur for the best, for a wise and beneficent end, and are ordered by a human intelligence! It is the most utter falsehood and a crime against the human race.
Assertion | Contempt | Crime | Falsehood | Human race | Intelligence | Race | Wise |
Addictive spirituality creates dependence in the practitioner (frequently to authoritarian leaders and their communities), an avoidance of personal responsibility, and loss of individuality through social controls, such as fear, guilt, or greed for power or bliss. It also tends to suppress rational inquiry into the teachings. Healthy spirituality, on the other hand, supports the practitioner's freedom, autonomy, self-esteem, and social responsibility. It is based on experience, rather than belief or dogma; it does not create idols out of spiritual teachers; and it empowers students by emphasizing democratic forms of learning and teaching, rather than the authoritarian model that has dominated spiritual life for millennia.
Belief | Dependence | Dogma | Esteem | Experience | Fear | Freedom | Greed | Guilt | Individuality | Inquiry | Learning | Life | Life | Model | Power | Responsibility | Self | Self-esteem | Spirituality | Loss |
Robert Lynd, fully Robert Wilson Lynd
The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.
Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Belief | Courage | Daring | Energy | History | Hope | Injustice | Injustice | Man | Oppression | Time |
Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. n.
Belief | Change | Courage | Daring | Energy | Events | Greatness | History | Man | Oppression | Time | Will | Work |
Your temporal formlessness belies your spatial coherence. Only by asserting yourself in time can you achieve functional identity and become in fact what you seem to be in the mirror. And such an assertion is impossible without a plan of personal development which forcefully projects your character into the future.