This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Faith, then, is a quality of human living. At its best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service; a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen to oneself at the level of immediate event. Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive; and face others with cheerful charity.
Charity | Confidence | Courage | Faith | Joy | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Meaning | Men | Opportunity | Quiet | Serenity | Service | Sorrow | Universe | World |
Bill Bradley, fully William Warren "Bill" Bradley
American environmental ills at home (smog, deforestation, the loss of wetlands), as well as the degradation of vast areas of the developing world remind us that protecting the environment is the ultimate enlightened self-interest.
Self | Self-interest | World | Loss |
Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility.
Adversity | Body | Darkness | Heart | Humility | Judgment | Life | Life | Light | Prosperity | Speech |
The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true; It does create a sense of comradeship, which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong. War allows us to rise above our small stations in life. We find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War, for those who enter into combat, has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the "lust of the eye" and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning.
Alienation | Beauty | Bible | Cause | Diversion | Feelings | Life | Life | Lust | Meaning | Nobility | Self | Sense | Time | War | Bible |
The nobility of our calling will always be rooted in two commitments difficult to observe: refusal to lie about what we know, and resistance to oppression.
Nobility | Oppression | Will |
If this world affords true happiness, it is to be found in a home where love and confidence increase with the years, where the necessities of life come without severe strain, where luxuries enter only after their cost has been carefully considered.
You should remember that though another may have more money, beauty, and brains than you, when it comes to the rarer spiritual values such as charity, self-sacrifice, honor and nobility of heart, you have an equal chance with everyone to be the most beloved and honored of all people.
Beauty | Chance | Charity | Heart | Honor | Money | Nobility | People | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice |
A.C. Benson, fully Arthur Christopher “A.C.” Benson
Religious worship is only as it were a postern by the side of the great portals of beauty and nobility and truth. One whose heart is filled with a yearning mystery at the sight of the starry heavens, who can adore the splendor of noble actions, courageous deeds, patient affections, who can see and love the beauty so abundantly shed abroad in the world… he can at all these moments draw near to God, and open his soul to the influx of the Divine Spirit.
Beauty | Deeds | God | Heart | Love | Mystery | Nobility | Soul | Spirit | Truth | World | Worship | Beauty |
Billy Graham, formally William Franklin "Billy" Graham
The foundations of civilization are no stronger and no more enduring that the corporate integrity of the homes on which they rest. If the home deteriorates, civilization will crumble and fall.
Civilization | Integrity | Rest | Will |
Those who visit foreign nations, but who associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs; they see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untraveled minds.
Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
If ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true metal and bear the stamp of heaven.
Chief Joseph, born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat
Our fathers gave us many laws, which they have learned from their fathers; these laws were good. They told us to treat all men as they treated us; that we should never break a bargain; that it was a disgrace to tell a lie, that we should speak only the truth; that it was a shame for one man to take from another his wife, or his property without paying for it. We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything and that he never forgets; that hereafter He will give every man a spirit home according to his desserts - if he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he was bad, he will have a bad home. This I believe, and all my people believe the same.
Disgrace | Good | Man | Men | People | Property | Shame | Spirit | Truth | Wife | Will |