This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Desire of having is the sin of covetousness. Twelfth Night, Act v, Scene 1
Art | Father | Perfection | Art |
Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.
If [we] have no chosen the kingdom of God [first], it will make in the end no difference what [we] have chosen instead.
Desire | Life | Life | Nothing | Perfection |
We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure upsurges of fresh spiritual vitality, breaking through and revolting against the hardened structure of the older body, and claiming, in the name of the Spirit, liberty from outward forms and institutions. And we have seen how rapidly they develop their own forms, their own structures of thought, of language, and of organization. It would surely be a very unbiblical view of human nature and history to think -- as we so often, in our pagan way, do -- that this is just an example of the tendency of all things to slide down from a golden age to an age of iron, to identify the spiritual with the disembodied, and to regard visible structure as equivalent to sin. We must rather recognize here a testimony to the fact that Christianity is, in its very heart and essence, not a disembodied spirituality, but life in a visible fellowship, a life which makes such total claim upon us, and so engages our total powers, that nothing less than the closest and most binding association of men with one another can serve its purpose.
Firmness | Grief | Life | Life | Perfection | Pious | Poverty | Pride | Strength | Weakness | Will |
To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
Art | Perfection | Art |
Usually we praise only to be praised.
ORSINO: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, than women's are… For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r being once display'd doth fall that very hour. VIOLA: And so they are; alas, that they are so! To die, even when they to perfection grow!
ORSINO: How dost thou like this tune? VIOLA: It gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned.
Perfection | Praise |
We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we'll all end up when we die, and during the interim, it is our home, And there's no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don't at least marginally understand our home.
Ego | Fortune | Life | Life | Mind | Perfection | Right | Silence |
Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.
Ego | Mind | Perfection | Silence |
I thought that prattling boys and girls would fill this empty room; that my rich heart would gather flowers From childhood's opening bloom. One child and two green graves are mine, this is God's gift to me; a bleeding, fainting, broken heart— This is my gift to Thee.
Need | Perfection | Reason | Will | Learn | Understand |
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, fully Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.
Perfection | Understand |
Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life.
Church | Perfection | Will |
Occasionally, we receive questions as to the propriety of Church members receiving government assistance instead of Church assistance. Let me restate what is a fundamental principle. Individuals, to the extent possible, should provide for their own needs. Where the individual is unable to care for himself, his family should assist. Where the family is not able to provide, the Church should render assistance, not the government.
Better | Choice | Good | Important | Mother | Perfection | Principles | Qualities | Right | Think |
Statesmen and Philanthropists are busy suggesting remedies for the cure of these great evils. But the renovation of our Civil Service, the reform of our Primaries, and whatever other measures may be devised, they all depend in the last instance upon the fidelity of those to whom their execution must be entrusted. They will all fail unless the root of the evil be attacked, unless the conscience of men be aroused, the confusion of right and wrong checked, and the loftier purposes of our being again brought powerfully home to the hearts of the people.
Change | Evolution | Human nature | Life | Life | Light | Mankind | Means | Men | Nature | Object | Perfection |