This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
This ahimsa [non-harm] is the basis of the search for truth . . . It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resists and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself.
If anyone removes (one of the) anxieties of this world from a believer, God will remove (one of the) anxieties from him on the Day of Resurrection if one smoothes the way for one who is destitute, God will smooth the way for him in this world and the next and if anyone conceals the faults of a Muslim, God will conceal his faults in this world and the next. God helps a man as long as he helps his brother. If anyone pursues a path in search of knowledge God will thereby make easy for him a path to paradise.
The only method that proved effective, not justified or moral but effective, when Arabs plant mines on our side [is retaliation]. If we try to search for the [particular] Arab [who planted mines], it has not value. But if we harass the nearby village . . . then the population there comes out against the [infiltrators] . . . and the Egyptian Government and the Transjordanian Government are [driven] to prevent such incidents, because their prestige is [assailed], as the Jews have opened fire, and they are unready to begin a war . . . the method of collective punishment so far has proved effective.
Government | Method | Punishment | Search | War | Government |
The search of knowledge is an obligation laid on every Muslim.
Knowledge | Obligation | Search |
Morris West, fully Morris Langlo West
It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price…. One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
Acceptance | Cost | Darkness | Doubt | Pain | Risk | Search | Will | World |
He who leaves home in search of knowledge, walk in the path of God.
Search |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
This is no appeal made by a man who does not know his business. I have been practising with scientific precision non-violence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years. I have applied it in every walk of life, domestic, institutional, economic and political. I know of no single case in which it has failed. Where it has seemed sometimes to have failed, I have ascribed it to my imperfections. I claim no perfection for my self. But I do claim to be a passionate seeker after Truth, which is but another name for God. In the course of the search the discovery of non-violence came to me. Its spread is my life-mission. I have no interest in living except for the prosecution of that mission.
Discovery | Man | Perfection | Precision | Search | Precision | Discovery |
Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal
When a man sleeps, his faculties rest, his senses are quiet, and his mind is relaxed and hushed. The only thing that continues to function is his imagination (dream center), and this conceives and envisions various images. Some of these images arise from the individual's experiences while awake. Others may be the result of substances that rise to the brain, either from the body's own hormones, or from the food that one eats. These images are the dreams that all people experience. G-d has also decreed that the bond between the body and the divine soul should be somewhat loosened while man sleeps. The portions of the soul from Ruach (Spirit) and above then rise and sever themselves from the body. Only one portion, the Nefesh (Soul), remains with the lower [animal] soul. The freed portions of the soul can then move about in the spiritual realm wherever they are allowed. They can interact and associate with such spiritual beings as the angels who oversee natural phenomena, the angels associated with prophecy, and Shedim (demons). Whatever they experience will depend on a variety of factors. When these higher levels of the soul perceive something, they can sometimes transmit it step by step, until it reaches the animal soul. The imagination is then stimulated and forms images in its normal manner. [A person can then see this as a dream.]... Dreams in general can therefore arise either from the imagination itself or as a result of the stimulation of the Soul (Neshamah) according to what it perceives. In the latter case, the initiating agent is always one of the spiritual Forces which make something known to the Soul (Neshamah). The soul then transmits this to the imagination. If that spiritual Force is one of G-d's holy servants, then the information that the soul receives will be true. If it comes from the opposing Forces, on the other hand, then it will be false. Our sages thus teach us that a true dream originates through an angel, while a false one originates through a Shed (demon).
Angels | Body | Dreams | Experience | Force | Imagination | Man | Mind | People | Soul | Teach | Will |
Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL
[paraphrase] Of the three goods, the Mohists' concept of “order” (zhi) calls for special attention. This is a complex good comprising a variety of conditions the Mohists probably regard as constitutive of the good social life. From passages in which the Mohists characterize zhi (order) and its opposite, luan (disorder, turmoil), we find that the elements of “order” include at least four sorts of conditions. All levels of society conform to unified moral standards, and incentives and disincentives based on these standards are administered fairly by virtuous leaders, as described in Mohist political theory. Peace and social harmony prevail, characterized negatively as the absence of crime, deceit, harassment, injury, conflict, and military aggression. Members of society manifest virtues constitutive of the proper performance of their relational social roles as ruler or subject, father or son, and elder or younger brother. Order obtains only when the ruler is benevolent, his subjects are loyal, fathers are kind, sons are filial, and elder and younger brothers display brotherly love and respect. (Like much ancient thought, Mohism has a sexist bias, and with few exceptions the texts disregard the social roles of women.) Community members habitually engage in reciprocal assistance and charity, sharing information, labor, education, and surplus goods and aiding the destitute and unfortunate. In summary, “benefit to the world” is a general conception of welfare comprising social harmony and public security; economic prosperity and a thriving population and family; reciprocal cooperation among neighbors and charity for the needy; and good social relations, manifested in the exercise of virtues corresponding to the fundamental social roles.
Absence | Charity | Cooperation | Display | Father | Good | Harmony | Love | Order | Prosperity | Public | Regard | Society | Surplus | Society |
Nachman of Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Bratslav, Nachman from Uman NULL
Know! You need to judge every person favorably, even someone who is completely wicked, you need to search and find any little bit of good. By finding in him a little good and judging him favorably you actually bring him over to the side of merit and you can return him in teshuva.
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
My grandchildren, this is the way things really are. We must do everything with love in our hearts. God belongs to everyone. He has given a commonwealth to all His creations, and we must not take it for ourselves. We must not take more than our share. Our hearts must melt with love, we must share everything with others, and we must give lovingly to make others peaceful. Then we will win our true beauty and the liberation of our soul. Please think about this. Prayer, the qualities of God, the actions of God, faith in God, and worship of God are your grace. If you have these, God will be yours and the wealth of the world to come will be yours. My grandchildren, realize this in your lifetime. Consider your life, search for wisdom, search for knowledge, and search for that love of God which is divine knowledge, and search for His qualities, His love, and His actions. That will be good. Amin. Ya Rabbal-‘alamin. So be it. O Ruler of the universes. May God grant you this
Beauty | Faith | God | Love | Qualities | Search | Wealth | Will | World | Worship | Beauty | God | Think |
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
If you try, everything you strive for will come close to you, and you will reap the benefit. May God give you that help, that grace, that wisdom, and His qualities. May He do what is good. If you believe in Him, He will never let go of you. If you intend Him, He will come looking for you. If you call Him, He will call you. If you love Him, He will love you. If you search for Him, He will search for you. Know this. Amin. Amin.
General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the accumulation of money. The faculties of the great universities possess, in the aggregate, practically every form of general knowledge known to civilization. Most of the professors have but little money. They specialize on teaching knowledge, but they do not specialize on the organization, or the use of knowledge.
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
The calm and tolerant atmosphere that prevailed during the elections depicts the type of South Africa we can build. It set the tone for the future. We might have our differences, but we are one people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture, race and tradition.
Nicholas of Cusa, also Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus NULL
But if you search further, you find in yourself nothing similar to God, but rather you affirm that God stands above all this as cause, origin, and the light of life of your intellective soul.
Nicholas of Cusa, also Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus NULL
It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it, then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites.
Nicholas of Cusa, also Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus NULL
If, therefore, man has come into the world to search for God and, if he has found Him, to adhere to Him and to find repose in adhering to Him--man cannot search for Him and attain Him in this sensible and corporeal world, since God is spirit rather than body, and cannot be attained in intellectual abstraction, since one is able to conceive nothing similar to God, as he asserts--how can one, therefore, search for Him in order to find Him?
God | Man | Nothing | Order | Repose | Search | Spirit | World | God |
Pablo Neruda, pen name for Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
It was at that age that poetry came in search of me.