This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
One should not (seek to) please others in an improper way, not be lavish of his words... To cultivate one’s person and fulfill one’s word is called good conduct. When the conduct is (thus) ordered, and the words are accordant with the (right) course, we have the substance of the rules of propriety... The course (of duty), virtue, benevolence, and righteousness cannot be fully carried out without the rules of propriety... nor can the clearing up of quarrels and discriminating in disputes be accomplished.
Benevolence | Conduct | Duty | Good | Right | Righteousness | Virtue | Virtue | Words |
Mary Catherwood, fully Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends.
J. A. C. Brown, fully James Alexander Campbell Brown
Most people want to feel that issues are simple rather than complex, want to have their prejudices confirmed, want to feel that they “belong” with the implication that others do not, and need to pinpoint an enemy to blame for their frustrations. This being the case, the propagandist is likely to find that his suggestions have fallen on fertile soil so long as he delivers his message with an eye to the existing attitudes and intellectual level of his audience.
Hélder Câmara, fully Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara
Selfishness is the deepest root of all unhappiness... It feeds an insatiable hunger that first eats up everything belonging to others and then causes a creature to devour itself.
Hunger | Selfishness | Unhappiness |
César Chávez, fully César Estrada Chávez
The end of all education should surely be service to others. We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about the progress and prosperity of our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others for their sake and for our own.
Achievement | Education | Enough | Progress | Prosperity | Service |
Didache or The Didache, "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" NULL
And every prophet that teaches the truth if he does not what he teaches is a false prophet… But whosoever shall say in the spirit: Give me money, or any other thing, ye shall not listen to him: but, if he bid you give for others that are in need, let no man judge him.
Every new idea will… be troublesome to [the individual’s] entire being. He will defend himself against it because it threatens to destroy his certainties. He thus actually comes to hate everything opposed to what propaganda has made him acquire. Propaganda has created in him a system of opinions and tendencies which may not be subjected to criticism… Incidentally, this refusal to listen to new ideas usually takes on a vigorous propaganda will declare that all new ideas are propaganda.
Criticism | Destroy | Hate | Ideas | Individual | System | Will | Propaganda |
If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter; for there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Will |
Those who love nothing, and hate nothing, have no fetters.
Robert I. Gannon, fully Robert Ignatius Gannon
Tolerance… is the lowest form of human cooperation. It is the drab, uncomfortable, halfway house between hate and charity.
Charity | Cooperation | Hate |
Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan Ghalib
My yearning has loosened the veil hiding Beauty. She is now mine - but alas, my own sight is there blocking the view. The beat of my own heart sounds in my ear. The wish to live as others do has long been silenced. What does their world have to offer? Nothing but the echo of voices yelling, “more, more.”
Most often faith is understood as belief in certain propositional, doctrinal formulations that in some essential ands static way are supposed to “contain” truth. But if faith is relational, a pledging of trust and fidelity to another, and a way of moving into the force field of life trusting in dynamic center of value and power, then the “truth” of faith takes on a different quality. Truth is lived: it is a pattern of being in relation to others and to God. In this light, doctrines and creeds come to be seen as playing a different though still crucial role. Rather than being the repositories of truth, like treasure chests to be honored and assented to, they becomes guides for the construction of contemporary ways of seeing and being.
Belief | Dynamic | Faith | Fidelity | Force | God | Life | Life | Light | Power | Trust | Truth | Value |
Faith is people’s evolved and evolving ways of experiencing self, others and world (as they construct them) as related to and affected by the ultimate conditions of existence (as they construct them) and of shaping their lives’ purposes and meaning, trusts and loyalties, in light of the character of being, value and power determining the ultimate conditions of existence (as grasped in their operative images – conscious and unconscious of them).
Character | Existence | Faith | Light | Meaning | People | Power | Self | World | Value |