This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I read your categories of humanism with interest. They seem to me to be excellent and will be useful to me. As for myself, I do not know exactly where I fit. I do not know the realities of the cosmos. I only know that man with his hopes and aspirations, his capacity to sacrifice for an ideal is part of it. He uses the abilities with which he is endowed not only to maintain life but to find some meaning for it. His efforts to discover meaning ends in mystery. His attempt through the use of reason to add to his knowledge of the cosmos has brought a vast increase in that knowledge beyond the frontiers of which, however, lies mystery. To push out this frontier, to penetrate the mystery is his greatest challenge. I find that contemplation of the mystery brings that humility which is one of the virtues taught by religion. For me the aspirations (part of the cosmos) of men suggest an essence or being greater than man, worship of whom gives added strength for dealing with the vicissitudes of life.
Capacity | Contemplation | Ends | Humility | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Men | Mystery | Reason | Sacrifice | Strength | Will | Worship | Vicissitudes | Contemplation |
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist.
Humility | Impression | Means | Patience |
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life - a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.
Rashi, born Shlomo ben Yitzchok, aka Salomon Isaacides, Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki NULL
We learn from here the humility of the Holy One, Blessed is He. Since man is in the likeness of the angels, and they would be jealous of him, for this reason, He consulted them.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.
Scientists are sometimes suspected of arrogance. Carl Sagan commends to us by contrast the humility of the Roman Catholic Church which, as early as 1992, was ready to grant a pardon to Galileo and admit publicly that the Earth does indeed revolve around the Sun. We must hope that this outspoken magnanimity will not cause any offence or hurt to the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz who, according to Sagan, in 1993 issued an edict, or fatwa, declaring that the world is flat. Anyone of the round persuasion does not believe in God and should be punished. Arrogance? Scientists are amateurs in arrogance.
Authority | Cause | Church | Contrast | Earth | God | Hope | Humility | Magnanimity | Pardon | Persuasion | Will | World | God |
The first step to becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you're creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don't go according to plan. It's helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, Life isn't an emergency.
Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
The unanswerable mysteries... the attitude that all is uncertain... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect.
Humility |
Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman
The basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual... the humility of the spirit.
Action | Brotherhood | Humility | Value |
Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans
Marriage requires the giving and keeping of confidences, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, respect and understanding always, marriage requires humility - the humility to repent, the humility to forgive. Marriage requires flexibility (to give and take) and firmness: not to compromise principles. And a wise and moderate sense of humor. Both need to be pulling together in the same direction.
Flexibility | Giving | Humility | Marriage | Need | Respect | Sense | Understanding | Wise | Flexibility | Respect |
It is much to be desired that there were that love in all men to teach what they know, and that humility in others to be instructed in what they know not. God humbles sometimes great persons to learn of others that are meaner, and it is our duty to embrace the truth whoever brings it, and oftentimes ordinary persons are instruments of knowledge and comfort to many that are greater than themselves
Comfort | Duty | God | Humility | Knowledge | Love | Men | Teach | Truth | God | Learn |
Samuel Tilden, fully Samuel Jones Tilden
I Still Trust in The People. [engraved on his tombstone]
Accomplishment | Humility | Organization | Spirit | Strength | Success | Unity | Leadership |
Anthony Kenny, fully Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny
Internalized experiences of selfhood are linked to autobiographical narratives, which are linked to biographies, legal testimonies, and medical case histories, which are linked to forms of therapy and theories of the subject.
Control | Defects | Humility | Inclination | Judgment | Passion | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |
The God of the New Testament is not less holy that the God of the Old Testament, but more holy. The interval between the creature and Him is not diminished but made absolute; the unworthiness of the profane in contrast to Him is not extenuated but enhanced. That God none the less admits access to Himself and intimacy with Himself is not a mere matter of course; it is a grace beyond our power to apprehend, a prodigious paradox.
The first step of humility is to obey. This will be natural to those who love Christ above all. Because of the holy service they have promised or because of fear of hell, they will carry out the abbot's order as quickly as if the command came from God. This will be accepted by God only if it is done without making faces or slowly or half-hearted. God sees his heart. The monk will receive no prize for service of this kind. Just the opposite, he will get punished, unless he changes for the better and makes things right.
Humility |
Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker
Americans like fat books and thin women.