This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Leonard, fully George Burr Leonard
Conservation is a state of harmony between man and land.
Character | Conservation | Harmony | Land | Man |
Wilma Mankiller, fully Wilma Pearl Mankiller
The meaning of life is to live in balance and harmony with every other living thing in creation. We must all strive to understand the interconnectedness of all living things and accept our individual role in the protection and support of other life forms on earth. We must also understand our own insignificance in the totality of things.
Balance | Character | Earth | Harmony | Individual | Insignificance | Life | Life | Meaning | Understand |
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
The best thing about philosophy is that it fails. It is better that philosophy fail to totalize meaning for it thereby remains open to the irreducible otherness of transcendence.
Better | Character | Meaning | Philosophy |
After the death of a close relative, thoughts of sorrow and pain frequently enter a person’s mind even after the mourning period. When such thoughts arise, one should try to strengthen oneself to accept the Almighty’s judgment. Every time you successfully conquer self-pitying thoughts, you elevate yourself.
Character | Death | Judgment | Mind | Mourning | Pain | Self | Sorrow | Time |
Georgii Litichevsky Semenovich
Life means love. We are here for love. Only love is real and everything is real thanks to love. We are nomads wandering through illusionary space. How to make it real? Only by destroying limits that separate us from others. No violence, no attempts at escape can help, only love. Too often love is more painful than joyful. The instances of love are much shorter than the periods during which we wait for love to emerge. The meaning of living is mastering the art of waiting.
Art | Character | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Means | Space | Waiting | Art |
Life really doesn’t have much meaning without death. Death gives each moment its value. It makes each instant precious and meaningful. When you understand how valuable each moment is, you begin to act accordingly.
Man gains freedom only through the use of his highest faculties. Materialism makes him more and more a slave to the forces of the phenomenal world... Our present-day materialism points in this direction - that is, in the direction of the enslavement of man by mechanisation and by its direct results, by state organisations, uniformity, the sacrifice of independent intelligence, the sweeping away of individual differences, local customs, local diversity, and all the infinite branchings of humanity that enrich life... Man is made free by ‘truth’. The truth spoken here is equated with mind. This kind of truth begins with self-knowledge.
Character | Day | Diversity | Freedom | Humanity | Individual | Intelligence | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Materialism | Mind | Present | Sacrifice | Self | Self-knowledge | Truth | Uniformity | World |
They that deserve nothing should be content with anything... If we cannot bring our condition to our mind, we must bring our mind to our condition; if a man is not content in the state he is in, he will not be content in the state he would be in.
It is in life that we have to ‘perfect’ ourselves. If we limit ‘this life’ to one single journey between birth and death there is not enough time. People give up trying, just because of this appearance of things. They do not bend the life round in a circle, but leave the whole matter to the ‘hereafter’. We cannot grasp that beyond the ‘end’ lies the beginning... Beyond our life we meet - our life. We cannot turn in any other direction!
Appearance | Beginning | Birth | Character | Death | Enough | Journey | Life | Life | People | Time |
Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL
Esteem must be founded on some sort of preference. Bestow it on everybody and it ceases to have any meaning at all.
Character | Esteem | Meaning | Preference |
Some people ask why the righteous suffer in this world. To a great extent the question is based on a misconception. Often, the criteria people use to judge whether another person is living a good life or not is by his financial standard of living... A truly righteous person by definition lives a happy life. Such a person has internalized the awareness that all the occurrences in his life are for the good, and he has satisfaction from his life. His life has meaning and purpose. His whole being is focused on spiritual elevation. He deeply feels that the good life is to fulfill the will of the Almighty and hence he feels great pleasure in the good deeds that he performs.
Awareness | Character | Deeds | Good | Happy | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Will | World | Deeds | Awareness |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgments as anger. No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death who should condemn a criminal upon the account of his own choler; why then should fathers and pedants be any more allowed to whip and chastise children in their anger? It is then no longer correction but revenge. Chastisement is instead of physic to children; an should we suffer a physician who should be animated against and enraged at his patient?
Anger | Character | Children | Death | Men | Passion | Revenge | Right |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learnt to die has forgot to serve.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
Character | Cheerfulness | Wisdom |
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. People grow old only by deserting their ideals and outgrowing the consciousness of youth. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. You are as old as your doubt; your fear; your despair. The way to keep young is to keep your faith young. Keep your self-confidence young. Keep your hope young.
Character | Confidence | Consciousness | Despair | Doubt | Enthusiasm | Faith | Fear | Hope | Ideals | Life | Life | Mind | People | Self | Self-confidence | Soul | Time | Youth | Old |
What you leave at your death let it be without controversy, else the lawyers will be your heirs.
Character | Controversy | Death | Will |