This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Abuse resembles a church procession; it always returns to the point from which it set out.
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
I condemn Christianity, I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible charge any prosecutor has ever uttered. to me it is the extremist thinkable form of corruption, it has had the will to the ultimate corruption conceivably possible. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity, it has made of every value a disvalue, of every truth a lie, of every kind of integrity a vileness of soul. People still dare to talk to me of its ‘humanitarian’ blessings! To abolish any state of distress whatever has been profoundly inexpedient to it: it has lived on states of distress, it has created states of distress in order to externalize itself.
Blessings | Church | Corruption | Distress | Integrity | Nothing | Order | People | Soul | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Value |
Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes to bitter consciousness during adversity.
Adversity | Consciousness | Prosperity | Remorse | Wisdom |
Depend on this one fact: The future of mankind, peace, progress and prosperity must be finally determined by the extent to which men can be brought to a state of common and honest understanding.
Future | Mankind | Men | Peace | Progress | Prosperity | Understanding | Wisdom |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but the greater well-being of all that is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is His eye, advancement; what afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive, then, to raise myself to this point of the divine contemplation and thence to view and judge the concerns of men.
Beauty | Contemplation | Equality | Greatness | Justice | Man | Men | Prosperity | Wisdom | Contemplation |
Our advance and salvation, our retreat and destruction, are linked with the prosperity or failure of school and synagogue.
Failure | Prosperity | Salvation | Wisdom | Failure |
Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger
The consciousness of abiding safety in the bosom of the Church is one of the most serious obstacles to an honest confrontation with the Christian faith.
Church | Consciousness | Faith |
Bishops' Pastoral Letter "Economic Justice For All" NULL
From the patristic period to the present, the Church has affirmed that misuse of the world’s resources or appropriation of them by a minority of the world’s population betrays the gift of creation since “whatever belongs to God belongs to all.”
William Barrett, fully William Christopher Barrett
The decline of religion in modern times means simply that religion is no longer the uncontested center and ruler of man’s life., and that the church is no longer the final and unquestioned home and asylum of his being.
People are driven from the church not so much by stern truth that makes them uneasy, as by weak nothings that make them contemptuous.
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Man | Prosperity |
César Chávez, fully César Estrada Chávez
The end of all education should surely be service to others. We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about the progress and prosperity of our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others for their sake and for our own.
Achievement | Education | Enough | Progress | Prosperity | Service |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
The test of friendship is assistance in adversity – and that, too, unconditional assistance. Cooperation which needs consideration is a commercial contract, and not friendship. Conditional cooperation is like adulterated cement which does not bind.
Adversity | Consideration | Cooperation | Friendship |
If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, “good fences make good neighbors.”