This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Prophecy is not an art, nor (when it is taken for prediction) a constant vocation, but an extraordinary and temporary employment from God, most often of good men, but sometimes also of the wicked.
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Dependence | Example | Fear | Glory | Government | Labor | Means | People | Precedent | Public | Society | Stewardship | Time | Title | Trust | Society | Government |
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...
Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.
Dependence | Nature | Sense | Wrong |
The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.
Dependence | Will |
Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.
Dependence | Fear | Object | Spirit |
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, it’s necessary consequence.
Dependence | Rights |
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
Nothing is more curious and awkward than the relationship of two people who only know each other with their eyes — who meet and observe each other daily, even hourly and who keep up the impression of disinterest either because of morals or because of a mental abnormality. Between them there is listlessness and pent-up curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need for communion and also a kind of tense respect. Because man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge.
Day | Destroy | Incompetence | Influence | Soul | Will | Teacher |
Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?
Argument | Belief | Body | Confidence | Dependence | Evidence | Faith | Fear | God | Hypocrisy | Influence | Lord | Man | Men | Mind | Money | Nothing | Object | Opinion | Plan | Power | Presumption | Principles | Public | Reason | Religion | Rights | Thinking | Trust | Truth | Will | World | God |
God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to be a good street sweeper than a bad writer, better to be a good bartender than a bad doctor, and the repentant thief… than the holy ones who had Him nailed to the cross. And yet, abstractly speaking, what is more holy than the priesthood and less holy than the state of a criminal? The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life He listened and obeyed. The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection. But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way they had no choice but to reject it.
Action | Contemplation | Dependence | Experience | Faith | God | Grace | Knowing | Life | Life | Meaning | Peace | Reason | Salvation | Thought | Trust | God | Contemplation | Thought |
Prayers and sacrifice must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against war, and like all weapons they must be used with deliberate aim: not just with a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against violence and against war. This implies that we are also willing to sacrifice and restrain our own instinct for violence and aggressiveness in our relations with other people. We may never succeed in this campaign, but whether we succeed or not, the duty is evident. It is the great task of our time. Everything else is secondary, for the survival of the human race itself depends upon it. We must at least face this responsibility and do something about it. And the first job of all is to understand the psychological forces at work in ourselves and in society.
Absolute | Dependence | God | Life | Life | Light | Lord | Man | Need | Perfection | Prayer | God |
Decoration - MID the flower-wreathed tombs I stand Bearing lilies in my hand. Comrades! in what soldier-grave Sleeps the bravest of the brave? Is it he who sank to rest 5 With his colors round his breast? Friendship makes his tomb a shrine; Garlands veil it: ask not mine. One low grave, yon trees beneath, Bears no roses, wears no wreath; 10 Yet no heart more high and warm Ever dared the battle-storm, Never gleamed a prouder eye In the front of victory, Never foot had firmer tread 15 On the field where hope lay dead, Then are hid within this tomb, Where the untended grasses bloom, And no stone, with feigned distress, Mocks the sacred loneliness. 20 Youth and beauty, dauntless will, Dreams that life could ne’er fulfil, Here lie buried; here in peace Wrongs and woes have found release. Turning from my comrades’ eyes, 25 Kneeling where a woman lies, I strew lilies on the grave Of the bravest of the brave.
Teacher |
One leg by truth supported, one by lies, they sidle to the goal with awkward pace, secure of nothing -- but to lose the race.
History offers some consolation by reminding us that sin has flourished in every age.
Teacher |
Fame often rests at first upon something accidental, and often, too, is swept away, or for a time removed; but neither genius nor glory, is conferred at once, nor do they glimmer and fall, like drops in a grotto, at a shout.
Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis
Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.
Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
Being unhappy is a habit. Being depressed is a habit. Being lazy is a habit. Being limited is a habit. These, and many other personality traits, result from the way in which you use your mind.
Teacher |
Wei Wu Wei, pen name for Terence James Stannus Gray
This may account for the extraordinary popularity of such works as the Tao Te Ching, and in a lesser degree for that of the Diamond and Heart Sutras and Padma Sambhava's Knowing the Mind. For despite the accretion of superfluous verbiage in which the essential doctrine of some of the latter has become embedded, their direct pointing at the truth, instead of explaining it, goes straight to the heart of the matter and allows the mind itself to develop its own vision. An elaborately developed thesis must always defeat its own end where this subject matter is concerned, for only indication could produce this understanding, which requires an intuitional faculty, and it could never be acquired wholesale from without.
Defeat | Dependence | Doctrine | Heart | Knowing | Knowledge | Language | Literature | Means | Method | Mind | People | Popularity | Time | Understanding |