This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The most important thought I ever had was that of my individual responsibility to God.
God | Important | Individual | Responsibility | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
It is not that life has not meaning, but that it has no predetermined meaning. This requires us to confront our own responsibility for creating meaning for ourselves.
Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility |
We live in a biochemical, neurophysiological, resonant quantum soup. If this is true, the responsibility for what we have for our inner life is enormous, and extends far beyond one’s own personal and spiritual development. Whatever our inner experience might be in terms of love and passion, hate and greed, abundance and longing, or any other human qualities may well not be ours alone.
Abundance | Experience | Greed | Hate | Life | Life | Longing | Love | Passion | Qualities | Responsibility |
I believe each person should take responsibility to forge their own destiny in life and find what they feel is the true meaning for themselves. The meaning of life will ultimately be perceived differently by everyone and could actually be looked at as a sort of fingerprint of the mind because of the varying outlooks and perceptions.
Destiny | Life | Life | Meaning | Mind | Responsibility | Will |
Abdul Baha, or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, born `Abbás Effendí
God has given man the eye of investigation by which he may see and recognize truth. He has endowed man with ears that he may hear the message of reality, and conferred upon him the gift of reason by which he may discover things for himself. Man is not intended to see through the eyes of another, hear through another’s ears nor comprehend with another’s brain. Each human creature has individual endowment, power and responsibility in the creative plan of God.
God | Individual | Man | Plan | Power | Reality | Reason | Responsibility | Truth |
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 |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
All mysticism teaches that the depths of man are more than human, that in them lurks a mysterious contact with God and with the world. The true escape from oneself, form one’s self-imprisonment and separation from the world, is hidden within one’s own self, rather than outside.
The greatest responsibility an individual assumes is to oneself.
Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
When you find wealth within your reach, do not try to get it by improper means; when you meet with calamity, do not (try to) escape from it by improper means. Do not seek for victory in small contentions; do not seek for more than your proper share. Do not positively affirm what you have doubts about; and (when you have no doubts) do not let what you say appear (simply) as your own view.
Purpose is about developing relationships. Purpose is about bringing attention and intention into the present moment, moving ahead with new ideas, giving and receiving support, volunteering, mentoring, listening to the imagination and intuition, communicating, taking action based on inner direction and hints from the external, being adaptable, taking responsibility and ending the victim stance forever surrendering to the divine will and working with the lessons developing fluidity, tolerance, compassion, and the ability to love.
Ability | Action | Attention | Compassion | Giving | Ideas | Imagination | Intention | Intuition | Listening | Love | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Will | Victim |
Maintaining responsibility but not identification with the obstacle. In handling obstacles resourcefully, we once again come face-to-face with paradox: the problem is ours to deal with, and yet the problem is not the whole of who we are.
Faith is by its nature non-rational. Having faith does not in any way remove responsibility for one’s own ethical and existential decisions. Faith is about `opting out’ of the need for rational justification rather than a deliberate attempt to act contrary to reason.
Faith | Justification | Nature | Need | Reason | Responsibility |
The clarity of expectation produces Whitmore’s twin performance pillars of greater responsibility and awareness.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
We are fully responsible for who it is that we become. In the final analysis, there is no one else to blame. It is totally our own doing. We are always already free to remake our present and future by disencumbering ourselves of unwanted and unhelpful aspects of our past history. Freedom, choice, and responsibility are the ethical watchwords of existentialism.
Blame | Choice | Existentialism | Freedom | Future | History | Past | Present | Responsibility |