This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We waste a lot of energy wondering who we can trust, what we can trust them with, and recovering from being betrayed. But you are the person you really need to trust. You can trust everyone if you can trust yourself. We lack self-trust because of the countless times we sold ourselves out, abandoned ourselves, ignored our intuition, refused to take appropriate action, forfeited our power. So, lacking self-trust, we are left to the hopeless device of trying to make everyone and everything conform to our need to feel safe.
Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.
This loving person is a person who abhors waste--waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The principles of music and wood carving are alike -- when a wood carving is finished, it has been created at the expense of all the wood that has been carved away. Only the music of nature is complete and undiminished.
Music | Nature | Principles |
Lester Pearson, fully Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson
We know now that in modern warfare, fought on any considerable scale, there can be no possible economic gain for any side. Win or lose, there is nothing but waste and destruction.
Lloyd George, fully David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
Diplomats were invented simply to waste time.
Waste |
Louis L'Amour, fully Louis Dearborn L'Amour
Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else.
Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
If you continually ask yourself, "What's important now?", you won't waste time on the trivial.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
Pardon |
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming -- in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you -- means a loss of opportunity for some other task.
Fidelity | Life | Life | Means | Opportunity | Waste | Wonder | Loss |
Maxim Gorky, pen name of Alexei Maximovich Peshkov
Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Live not in ignorance. Do not waste your precious life-span in differentiating and judging your fellow men, but learn to long for the love of God. Even in the midst of your worldly activities, love only to find and realize your true Identity with your Beloved God.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Awaken from your ignorance and try at least to understand that, in the uncompromisingly Indivisible Oneness, not only is the Avatar God, but also the ant and the sparrow, just as one and all of you are nothing but God. The only apparent difference is in the states of consciousness. The Avatar knows that that which is a sparrow is not a sparrow, whereas the sparrow does not realize this and, being ignorant of its ignorance, identifies itself as a sparrow. Live not in ignorance. Do not waste your precious life-span in differentiating and judging your fellowmen, but learn to long for the love of God. Even in the midst of your worldly activities, live only to find and realize your true identity with your Beloved God.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
When you waste a moment, you have killed it in a sense, squandering an irreplaceable opportunity. But when you use the moment properly, filling it with purpose and productivity, it lives on forever.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
In order to truly influence a fellow, we must devote ourselves to him or her without regard to whether s/he will be influenced or not. He is a fellow human being who needs your help. So help him. If she lacks something material, help her. If she is spiritually lost, help her. Many see the point of influencing a fellow Jew to do a good deed, a mitzvah -- to put on tefillin, to perform a single act of charity, to avoid a moral transgression -- if this leads to a greater involvement, and ultimately, a complete transformation. But when confronted with a "lost case" they feel it's a waste of time. Why bother? Why bother? Because you care about him, not only about what he ought to be, what he will be, or what you see in him. He lacks something now, and you are privileged to be of assistance. If you care for him because you expect to influence him, then chances are he won't respond. But if you care for him whether he responds or not, then he will respond.[adapted from Public Speech]
Care | Good | Influence | Order | Public | Regard | Waste | Will |
And there's no getting around the fact that all life lives at the expense of another life.
Ecology's implications for capitalism are too momentous for the capitalist to contemplate. [The plutocrats] are more wedded to their wealth than to the Earth upon which they live, more concerned with the fate of their fortunes than with the fate of humanity. The present ecological crisis has been created by the few at the expense of the many. In other words, the struggle over environmentalism is part of the class struggle itself, a fact that seems to have escaped many environmentalists but is well understood by the plutocrats---which is why they are unsparing in their derision and denunciations of the 'eco-terrorists' and 'tree huggers.'
Capitalism | Earth | Fate | Present | Struggle | Wealth | Fate | Crisis |
We are all such a waste of our potential, like three-way lamps using one-way bulbs.
Waste |