This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Labor, as well as fasting, serves to mortify and subdue the flesh. Provided the labor you undertake contributes to the glory of God and your own welfare, I would prefer that you should suffer the pain of labor rather than that of fasting.
For all the psychological and physiological conditions which test integrity - fear, desire, hunger, fatigue, disaffection, anger, pain - have little reality in memory or anticipation but rather exist for the most part in the narrow immediacy of the present.
Anger | Anticipation | Desire | Fear | Hunger | Integrity | Little | Memory | Pain | Present | Reality |
One who causes himself pain by abstinence from something he desires is called a sinner.
Abstinence | Pain |
The least pain in our little finger gives more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
One fire burns out another's burning, one pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.
Pain |
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
Religion in the deepest sense takes shape as we learn through pain and loss that the creativity we exercise over our lives is finite, a mere participation in a greater creative act.
Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
Absence | Difficulty | Grace | Pain |
Every moment can be viewed as new... You cause yourself a great loss by not living in the present... Don’t let the past weigh you down... Realize what is over is over... The future is always an unknown entity so learn to focus on the present... Learn to concentrate on what you are presently doing... Always try to utilize your present moments for growth... If you master feeling joy in your present moments, you need never be concerned you are missing anything, since whatever you are engaged in can be transformed into an elevating experience... You can alleviate pain by living in the present.
Cause | Experience | Focus | Future | Growth | Joy | Need | Pain | Past | Present | Loss | Learn |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
Knowledge | Life | Life | Loneliness | Longing | Love | Mankind | Mockery | Pain | Pity | Poverty | Search | Suffering | World |
C. S. Lewis, fully Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, called "Jack" by his family
When pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
Courage | God | Knowledge | Little | Love | Pain | Sympathy | God |
Prefer a loss to dishonest gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
One generation of fearless women could transform the world, by bringing into it a generation of fearless children, not contorted into unnatural shapes, but straight and candid, generous, affectionate, and free. Their ardor would sweep away the cruelty and pain which we endure because we are lazy, cowardly, hard-hearted and stupid. It is education that gives us these bad qualities, and education that must give us the opposite virtues. Education is the key to the new world.
Children | Cruelty | Education | Pain | Qualities | World | Cruelty |
Elizabeth Drew, aka Elizabeth Brenner
We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.
Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.
Experience | God | Good | Nothing | Pain | Science | World | God |
Everyone knows that time is Death, that Death hides in clocks. Imposing another time powered by the Clock of the Imagination, however, can refuse his law. Here, freed of the Grim Reaper's scythe, we learn that pain is knowledge and all knowledge pain.
Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done