This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The truly moral person is the one who does the right thing without any promise of reward or threat of punishment - without engaging in a cost-benefit analysis.
Cost | Promise | Punishment | Reward | Right |
All religions promise a reward… for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding.
Heart | Promise | Reward | Understanding | Will |
No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty - let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only - those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something may be learnt.
We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.
Promise |
The preservation of peace and the improvement of the lot of all people require us to have faith in the rationality of humans. If we have this faith and if we pursue understanding, we have not the promise but at least the possibility of success. We should not be misled by promises. Humanity in all its history has repeatedly escaped disaster by a hair’s breadth. Total security has never been available to anyone. To expect it is unrealistic; to imagine that it can exist is to invite disaster.
Faith | History | Humanity | Improvement | Peace | People | Promise | Rationality | Security | Success | Understanding |
Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is a last year’s nest, from which the bird has flown.
Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest, from which the bird has flown.
Committing to our creativity is an act of faith, a promise that we will keep at it despite our fears and failings and despite whatever obstacles we find in our paths.
Creativity | Faith | Promise | Will |
Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
Don’t ever promise more than you can deliver, but always deliver more than you promise.
Promise |
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
Man should remember that God speaks the truth and promises by Himself, the Truth. If God were to be false to His word, His Truth, He would be false to His Divinity, and then He would not be God. It is his promise that our pains shall be changed to joy.
It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.
Death | Individual | Life | Life | Love | Observation |