This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason why we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.
Discussion | Enlightenment | Little | Prayer | Reason |
If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that."
Will |
Religion is not an opiate, for religion does not help people to forget, but to remember. It does not dull people. It does not say take, but give.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
To eliminate the vexation of the mind, it doesn’t help to do something; this only reinforces the mind’s mechanics. Dissolving the mind is instead a matter of not-doing: simply avoid becoming attached to what you see and think. Relinquish the notion that you are separated from the all-knowing mind of the universe. then you can recover the original pure insight and see through all illusions. Knowing nothing, you will be aware of everything. Remember: because clarity and enlightenment are within your own nature, they are regained without moving an inch.
Enlightenment | Insight | Knowing | Mind | Nature | Nothing | Universe | Will |
Kafū Nagai, pen name for Nagai Sōkichi
I believe that man was created to enjoy himself, indeed, that he can claim it as his legitimate right. In fact, as long as he lives, man cannot help enjoying himself, even if he tries not… Today the average person, when he hears the word pleasure, immediately thinks of something immoral. But nothing could be more wrong.
One hundred years after its invention, film art still occupies a marginal place in academic circles. The very activity of watching television is routinely dismissed as inherently inferior to the activity of reading, regardless of content. But narrative beauty is independent of medium. Oral tales, pictorial stories, plays, novels, movies, and television shows can all range from the lame and sensationalist to the heartbreaking and illuminating. We need every available form of expression and all the new ones we can muster to help us understand who we are and what we are doing.
Art | Beauty | Invention | Need | Novels | Reading | Television | Art | Beauty | Understand |
The greatest step forward in human evolution was made when society began to help the weak and the poor, instead of oppressing and despising them.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops NULL
Poverty is not merely the lack of adequate financial resources. It entails a more profound kind of deprivation, a denial of full participation in the economic, social, and political life of society and an inability to influence decisions that affect one’s life. It means being powerless in a way that assaults not only one’s pocketbook but also one’s fundamental human dignity. Therefore, we should seek solutions that enable the poor to help themselves through such means as employment. Paternalistic programs which do too much for and too little with the poor are to be avoided.
Dignity | Influence | Life | Life | Little | Means | Poverty | Society | Society |
Our life is not a problem to be solved, it is a gift to be opened… If we are preoccupied with what is missing and what is broken and wrong, we lose the miraculous harvest of all these tiny gifts, piled on upon the other, that accumulate without our acknowledging them. If we listen more carefully for the infinite blessings of a single day, this will not discount or obliterate our sorrows. But it will help us remember how strong and rich we can be, even in the midst of suffering.
Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman
Our beliefs serve myriad purposes: They help us to organize the world in meaningful ways… They can also connect us with the transcendent dimensions of experience, and give us inspiration and hope, essential tools for confronting those moments of confusion and doubt that are so often part of life.
Doubt | Experience | Hope | Inspiration | Life | Life | World |
Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.
Wrong |
The measure of a man is not his strength; it is the depth of his nobility. The measure of any person is how he or she treats those who are less gifted, less intelligent, and less able. The measure of a Christian is how willing he or she is to reach down and help those who are less fortunate -- to take the strength and advantage they have to help those who have not.
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 |
An open mind should be more than a catch-all receptacle. It should have a screening mechanism to keep out the trivial, a sorting capacity to organize ideas and reconcile contradictions, and a critical tool to help us decide what we believe. That’s the difference between a mind that receives information and a mind that thinks.