This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
You can throw yourselves away. You can become of no use in the universe except for a warning. You can lose your souls. Oh, what a loss is that! The perversion and degradation of every high and immortal power for an eternity! And shall this be true of any one of you? Will you be lost when One has come from heaven, traveling in the greatness of His strength, and with garments dyed in blood, on purpose to guide you home - home to a Father’s house - to an eternal home?
Eternal | Greatness | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Universe | Will | Loss |
Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but distrust of one's ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher results, often hampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure at the outset.
Ability | Better | Distrust | Failure | God | Work | Failure | Trial | God |
Mary Kay Ash, fully Mary Kathlyn Wagner Ash
A person is actually a product of her own thoughts; and when you think big, you achieve big things. Shakespeare said, "this is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." He would attain greatness must make no little plans.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Better the absence of greatness than the establishing of a false greatness by assumed humility. Not only do these efforts at humility on man's part not express strength, they are, on the contrary, expressions of modesty born of weakness, which springs from a lack of knowledge of the truth of Reality. Beware of modesty. Modesty, under the cloak of humility, invariably leads one into the clutches of self-deception. Modesty breeds egoism, and man eventually succumbs to pride through assumed humility. The greatest greatness and the greatest humility go hand in hand naturally and without effort.
Absence | Greatness | Humility | Knowledge | Man | Modesty | Pride | Truth |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
It is better to deny God, than to defy God. Sometimes our weakness is considered strength, and we take delight in borrowed greatness. To profess to be a lover of God and then to be dishonest to God, to the world and to himself, is unparalleled hypocrisy. Difficulties give us the opportunity to prove our greatness by overcoming them.
Better | God | Greatness | Opportunity | Weakness | World | God |
Menander, aka Menander of Athens NULL
The chief beginning of evil is goodness in excess.
You, my Eternal Friend, witness now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me…May no one be punished because of me. May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me. Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others. Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes. Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harm. Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others, and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way. Let me forgive others, let me forgive myself, but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others. I seek peace, let me BE peace. I seek justice, let me be just. I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind. I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have. I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have. I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me. I seek a world of love, let me be loving beyond all reason, beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is “normal,” beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little. And let me be open and sensitive to all the love that is already coming to me, the love of people I know, the love that is part of the human condition, the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language, music, recipes, technology, literature, religions, agriculture, and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us. Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more explicit way. Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me. And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector. Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me so that I may fully engage in the work of Tikkun – the healing and transformation of the world social and economic order, the planet, and myself.
Acceptance | Awareness | Change | Consequences | Eternal | Evil | Family | Fear | Giving | Guidance | Heart | Love | Past | People | Strength | Suffering | Universe | Will | Witness | Words | Work | World | Guidance | Awareness | Forgive |
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
God made the world for the delight of human beings-- if we could see His goodness everywhere, His concern for us, His awareness of our needs: the phone call we've waited for, the ride we are offered, the letter in the mail, just the little things He does for us throughout the day. As we remember and notice His love for us, we just begin to fall in love with Him because He is so busy with us -- you just can't resist Him. I believe there's no such thing as luck in life, it's God's love, it's His.
Awareness | Little | Love | Luck | World | Luck | Awareness |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Man's greatness lies in his power of thought.
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
A good performance, like a human life, is a temporal affair-a process in time. It is good as a whole through being good in its parts, and through their good order to one another. It cannot be called good as a whole until it is finished. During the process all we can say of it, if we speak precisely, is that it is becoming good. The same is true of a whole human life. Just as the whole performance never exists at any one time, but is a process of becoming, so a human life is also a performance in time and a process of becoming. And just as the goodness that attaches to the performance as a whole does not attach to any of its parts, so the goodness of a human life as a whole belongs to it alone, and not to any of its parts or phases.
Nachman of Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Bratslav, Nachman from Uman NULL
Just as God constricted his infinite light in creating the world, for due to the greatness of the light there was no room for creation, so too a person needs to constrict the infinite light of his heart in order to serve God in measure and in steps, for if the light would remain unconstricted it would be impossible to serve Him. So it turns out, in both cases, that this “constriction” of the light actually makes room for its own “revelation.”
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.
Dreams |
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
There is a melancholy that stems from greatness of mind.
Greatness | Melancholy |
The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake.
Greatness | Individual | Mediocrity |