This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We are impelled by a hidden instinct to reunion with the parts of the larger heart of the universe.
Al-Shafi’I, fully Abū ʿAbdullāh Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shafiʿī NULL
Never do I argue with a; man with a desire to hear him say what is wrong, or to expose him and win a victory over him… Whenever I face an opponent in debate I silently pray, “O Lord, Help him so that truth may flow from his heart and on his tongue, and so that if truth is on my side, he may follow me; and if it be on his side, I may follow him.”
Every author, indeed, who really influences the mind, who plants in it thoughts an sentiments which take root and grow, communicates his character. Error and immorality - two words for one thing, for error is the immorality of the intellect, and immorality the error of the heart - these escape from him if they are in him, and pass into the recipient mind through subtle avenues invisible to consciousness.
Character | Consciousness | Error | Heart | Mind | Wisdom | Words |
I knew that the complete mystic “way” includes both intellectual belief and practical activity; the latter consists in getting rid of the obstacles in the self and in stripping off its base characteristics and vicious morals, so that the heart may attain to freedom from what is not God and to constant recollection of Him.
Ancrene Wisse, aka Ancrene Riwle NULL
You ought to say fewer fixed prayers so that you may do more reading. Reading is good prayer. Reading teaches us how to pray, and what to pray for, and then prayer achieves it. In the course of reading, when the heart is pleased, there arises a spirit of devotion which is worth many prayers.
Devotion | Good | Heart | Prayer | Reading | Spirit | Worth |
A. A. Willitts, fully Alphonso A. Willitts
Be cheerful always. There is no path but will be easier traveled, no load but will be lighter, no shadow on heart and brain but will lift sooner for a person of determined cheerfulness.
Cheerfulness | Heart | Will | Wisdom |
Ultimately, what we invest our lives in reveals where our heart is. The man who says he loves his family but never spends time with them because he is obsessed with his work has greater love for his work than his family… The things to which we apportion most of our time, thought, and attention reveal where our treasure in life is truly found. If God is not foremost in our lives, if he is not our greatest treasure, he does not have our heart.
Attention | Family | God | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Man | Thought | Time | Work | God |
There is an absolute truth about everything; it lies behind all blunders and all partial knowledges, a calm, sure, unfound certainty, like the great sea beneath its waves, like the great sky behind its clouds. God knows it. It and the possession of it makes the eternal difference between God’s knowledge and man’s. It is a beautiful and noble faith when a man thus believes in the absolute truth, unfound, unfindable perhaps by man, and yet surely existent behind and at the heart of everything.
Absolute | Eternal | Faith | God | Heart | Knowledge | Man | Truth | God |