This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms, thou mayest always stand fast in the Lord within thee, to that degree as if thy soul had already entered the always present now of eternity.
New York Times Editorial on the Holocaust NULL
It was and it is to do all that can be done to eradicate an evil thing out of our civilization… a thing so incredibly wicked that it would not have been believable of modern man if it had not actually occurred. This evil, this wickedness began with intolerance and hate in a few men’s hearts. It spread until it almost wrecked the world. Now the obligation is to remember, not in hate, not in the spirit of revenge, but so that this spirit cannot ever flourish again so long as man remains on earth. And to this end, let us begin, each of us, by looking into our own hearts.
Civilization | Earth | Evil | Hate | Intolerance | Man | Men | Obligation | Revenge | Spirit | Wickedness | World |
Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered prayer.
Desire | Experience | Fulfillment | Joy | Prayer | Reality | Will |
Eternity is another word for unity. In it, past and future are not apart; here is everywhere, and now goes on forever. The opposite of eternity is diffusion not time. Eternity does not begin when time is at its end. Time is eternity broken into space, like a ray of light refracted in the water… unity is a task, not a condition. The world lies in strife, in discord, in divergence. Unity is beyond not within reality.
Eternity | Future | Light | Past | Reality | Space | Time | Unity | World |
Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL
The theory of war as an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts is now out of date.
Gilda Radner, fully Gilda Susan Radner
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin
The Buddha, that is now “Awakened One,” diagnosed the human condition in the following way. Life is out of balance and characterized by suffering because all things are impermanent, and yet we desire things as if they were permanent. We each view our own self as if it too were permanent and completely independent from our selves, and so we think of our self as competing for those things with other discrete selves. Everything that we desire will ultimately pass away – we cannot hold on to anything in the end, not even our own bodies and minds – so our inappropriate desires are frustrated and we suffer, only to be reborn again into anew life of desire and suffering. To break the cycle of rebirth (samsara), we must overcome our ignorance about the true nature of things, cut the root of desire, and give up attachment to self, for we are anatman, no-self.
Balance | Desire | Ignorance | Life | Life | Nature | Self | Suffering | Will | Following | Think |
Oscar Romero, formally Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez
No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.
The knowledge that mankind needs is not the way or principle which has an absolute existence, but the particular truths for here and now and for particular individuals. Absolute truth is imaginary, abstract, vague, without evidence, and cannot be demonstrated.
Absolute | Abstract | Evidence | Existence | Knowledge | Mankind | Truth | Truths |
George Sand, pen name for Amandine Lucte Aurore Dupin, Baronne Dudevant
One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness - simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial top a point, love of work, and above all a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain.
Conscience | Courage | Happy | Love | Self | Self-denial | Work | Happiness |
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
In the world from now on, neutrality is only a word for deceiving people.
Neutrality | People | World |
Obert C. Tanner, fully Obert Clark Tanner
The dominant fact of the twentieth century is that the entire population of the earth is now included within a single community. There are no more ocean barriers, no mountain barriers, no barriers of the north and south poles, no barriers of any kind. Thers is only one race now - it is the human race.
Earth | Human race | Race |
Many will receive great help, and many will be entirely healed by a practice somewhat after the following nature: Wit a mind at peace, and with a heart going out in love to all, go into the quiet of your own interior self, holding the thought - I am one with the Infinite Spirit of Life, the life of my life. I then as spirit, I a spiritual being, can in my own real nature admit of no disease. I now open my body, in w2hich disease has obtained a foothold, I open it fully to the inflowing tide of this Infinite Life, and it now, even now, is pouring in and coursing through my body, and the healing process is going on. Realize this so fully that you begin to feel a quickening and a warming glow imparted by the life forces to the body. Believe the healing process is going on. Believe it, and hold continually to it. Many people greatly desire a certain thing but expect something else. They have greater faith in the power of evil than in the power of good, and hence they remain ill.
Body | Desire | Disease | Evil | Faith | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Nature | Peace | People | Power | Practice | Quiet | Receive | Self | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wit | Following | Thought |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
I believe that the true welfare of man lies in the fulfillment of the Will of God; and that His will consists in men loving each other, and therefore behaving toward others as they desire that others should behave with them. I believe that the meaning of life of every man, therefore, lies only in the increase of love in himself; that this increase of love leads the individual man in this life toward greater and greater welfare; that after death it gives the greater welfare the more love there be in the man; and that, at the same time, more than anything else, it contributes to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, i.e., to an order of life where the discord, deceit, and violence which now reign will be replaced by free agreement, truth, and brotherly love between men.
Death | Deceit | Desire | Earth | Fulfillment | God | Individual | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Men | Order | Time | Truth | Will | God |
A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.
It is our fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present.
Many people live as if life were a dress rehearsal for some later date. It isn't. In fact, no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. When our attention is in the present moment, we push fear from our minds.
Attention | Control | Fear | Guarantee | Life | Life | People | Present | Time | Tomorrow | Will |