This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
There is more joy in doing one’s own duty badly than in doing another man’s duty well.
Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
When a man lacks discrimination, his will wanders in all directions, after innumerable aims. Those who lack discrimination may quote the letter of the scripture; but they are really denying its inner truth. They are full of worldly desires and hungry for the rewards of heaven. They use beautiful figures of speech; they teach elaborate rituals, which are supposed to obtain pleasure and power for those who practice them. But, actually, they understand nothing except the law of Karma that chains men to rebirth. Those whose discrimination is stolen away by such talk grow deeply attached to pleasure and power. And so they are unable to develop that one-pointed concentration of the will, which leads a man to absorption in God.
Aims | God | Heaven | Law | Man | Men | Nothing | Pleasure | Power | Practice | Scripture | Speech | Teach | Truth | Will | Understand |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not endured with patient resignation.
Duty | People | Resignation | Sense | Work |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Perhaps the most powerful solvent of the pre-scientific outlook has been the first law of motion, which the world owes to Galileo, though to some extent he was anticipated by Leonardo da Vinci. The first law of motion says that a body which is moving will go on moving in the same direction with the same velocity until something stops it.
To have sinned means that you are convinced that, in some mysterious way, what you have done will bring misfortune on you in the future; that it has broken some mysterious law of harmony, and is a link in a chain of past and future discords.
Future | Harmony | Law | Means | Misfortune | Past | Will | Misfortune |
No one can deny that much of our modern advertising is essentially dishonest; and it can be maintained that to lie freely and all the time for private profit is not to abuse the right of free speech, whether it is a violation of the law or not. But again the practical question is, how much lying for private profit is to be permitted by law?
Abuse | Advertising | Free speech | Law | Lying | Question | Right | Speech | Time |
Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant, finish by becoming its slave; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.
Association | Gold | Law | Men | Riches | Wealth | Will | World | Riches | Association |
Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant, finish by becoming its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.
Association | Gold | Law | Men | Riches | Wealth | Will | World | Riches | Association |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The Master said... 'Have no friends not equal to yourself'....The Master said, 'The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort'... The Master said, 'It is only the wisest and the very stupidest who cannot change.'... Being true to oneself is the law of God. To try to be true to oneself is the law of man.
Change | Comfort | God | Law | Man | Virtue | Virtue | Friends |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Can true love be anything but exacting? How can our sense of duty allow us to abstain from admonition?
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
There is no place in the highest heavens above nor in the deepest waters below where the moral law does not reign.
Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman
Discipline is the surest means to greater freedom and independence; it provides the focus to achieve the skill level and depth of knowledge that translates into more options in life... The Law of Discipline points to a paradox. While freedom is our transcendent birthright, it must be earned in this world; discipline remains the key to freedom and independence.
Discipline | Focus | Freedom | Knowledge | Law | Life | Life | Means | Paradox | Skill | World |
You have to turn might into duty and right into obligation. In effect, societies are ruled either by coercion or manipulation, by deceit, cheating, ideology, or by power. How do you get to normative order that avoids the excesses of things? That is the basic problem.
Coercion | Deceit | Duty | Obligation | Order | Power | Right |