This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The commandment to love the Almighty requires that we should be willing to give up our lives if necessary out of love for Him. If a person has internalized that in reality he is a soul and his body is merely an outer garment that he temporarily wears, he will find it relatively easy to fulfill the commandment of giving up his life is need be. He does not feel as if he is sacrificing himself for he always retains his soul. His body which he is sacrificing is not himself but only an outer garment. For such a person giving up his life is not the ultimate sacrifice since his body is not an integral part of his identity.
Body | Character | Giving | Life | Life | Love | Need | Reality | Sacrifice | Soul | Will |
Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
It is the evil that lives in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells within others.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
Knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and of good cheer.
Character | Good | Knowledge | Melancholy | Soul |
Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach
Who is a righteous man and who is an evil man? Many people think a righteous man is one who does not transgress, and the evil person is one who constantly transgresses. But even the very righteous also transgress and even the very wicked perform good deeds. The essential difference between the two is that a righteous person tries to overcome his desires to do wrong and the evil person does not.
Character | Deeds | Evil | Good | Man | People | Wrong | Think |
There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man’s affections center in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it will end.
Attainment | Beginning | Character | Choice | Darkness | Desire | Evil | Feelings | Good | Heart | Light | Man | Means | Possessions | Right | Understanding | Will | Wrong | Zeal | Vice |
Life is given for wisdom, and yet we are not wise; for goodness, and we are not good; for overcoming evil, and evil remains; for patience and sympathy and love, and yet we are fretful and hard and weak and selfish. We are keyed not to attainment, but to struggle toward it.
Attainment | Character | Evil | Good | Life | Life | Love | Patience | Struggle | Sympathy | Wisdom | Wise |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The soul [that] has no established aim loses itself.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces; and we never, or rarely, see a soul that in growing old does not come to smell sour and musty. Man grows and dwindles in his entirety.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
A soul guaranteed against prejudice is marvelously advanced toward tranquillity.
Character | Prejudice | Soul | Tranquility |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The want of goods is easily repaired, but the poverty of the soul is irreparable.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Vice leaves repentance in the soul like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always scratching and lacerating itself; for reason effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that of repentance, which is so much the more grievous, by reason it springs within, as the cold and hot of fevers are more sharp than those that only strike upon the outward skin.
Character | Reason | Repentance | Soul |