This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The missions of the higher religions are not competitive; they are complementary. We can believe in our own religion without having to feel that it is the sole repository of truth.
Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing.
Aptitude | Nothing | Superiority |
Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
Every dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power.
Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it.
Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.
Esteem | Principles | Religion |
If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
If you identify the Absolute with God, that is not the God of religion. If again you separate them, God become s finite factor in the Whole. And the effort of religion is put an end to, and break down, this relation - a relation which, none the less, it essentially presupposes. Hence, short of the Absolute, God cannot rest, and having reached that goal, he is lost and religion with him.
If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true. Venerable, because it has perfect knowledge of man; lovable because it promises the true good.
Despise | Fear | Good | Hate | Hope | Knowledge | Man | Men | Reason | Religion | Respect | Respect |
The artist, depicting man disdainful of the storm and stress of life, is no less reconciling and healing than the poet who, while endowing Nature and Humanity, rejoices in its measureless superiority to human passions and human sorrows.
We are now again in an epoch of wars of religion, but a religion is now called an "ideology."
Religion |
Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be.
Important | People | Religion | Thought | Toleration | Thought |
Religion is suited to all kinds of minds. Some pay attention only to its establishment, and this religion is such that its very establishment suffices to prove its truth. Others trace it even to the apostles. The more learned go back to the beginning of the world. The angels see it better still, and from a more distant time.
Angels | Attention | Beginning | Better | Religion | Time | Truth | World |
We have… two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.
Yoga is not a philosophy though its practice will lead the way to a life that is philosophical. It is not a religion and it is not confined to any particular creed or dogma. There is no "instant Nirvana"...or instant ANYthing. One works hard for what one gets out of Yogic studies.
Creed | Dogma | Life | Life | Philosophy | Practice | Religion | Will |