This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rashi, born Shlomo ben Yitzchok, aka Salomon Isaacides, Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki NULL
Because of charity the world abides.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.
Suspense of judgment and exercise of charity were safer and seemlier for Christian men than the hot pursuit of these controversies.
That man strangely mistakes the manner of spirit he is of who knows not that peaceableness, and gentleness, and mercy, as well as purity, are inseparable characteristics of the wisdom that is from above; and that Christian charity ought never to be sacrificed even for the promotion of evangelical truth.
Every deviation from the rules of charity and brotherly love, of gentleness and forbearance, of meekness and patience, which our Lord prescribes to his disciples, however it may appear to be founded on an attachment to Him and zeal for His service, is in truth a departure from the religion of Him, "the Son of Man," who "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
Charity | Destroy | Deviation | Gentleness | Lord | Meekness | Religion | Truth | Zeal |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
O loving, tender Word of God, You tell me: 'I have marked the path and opened the gate with My Blood; do not be negligent in following it, but take the same road which I, eternal Truth, have traced out with My Blood.' Arise, my soul, and follow your Redeemer, for no one can go to the Father but by Him. O sweet Christ, Christ-Love, You are the way, and the door through which we must enter in order to reach the Father.
Charity | Enough | Excess | Giving | God | Grace | Love | Man | God |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Where there is discord may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. Where there is despair, may we bring hope.
Anger | Charity | Enemy | Excess | Fear | Lord | Mercy | Patience | Peace | Poverty | Wisdom |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Listen, sons of the Lord and my brothers, pay attention to my words. Incline the ear of your heart and obey the voice of the Son of God. Observe His commands with your whole heart and fulfill His counsels with a perfect mind. Give praise to Him since He is good and exalt Him by your deeds (Tob. 13:6), for He has sent you into the entire world for this reason: that in word and deed you may give witness to His voice and bring everyone to know what there is no one who is all-powerful except Him. Preserve in disciple and holy obedience and with a firm and good purpose fulfill what you have promised to Him.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
You are a hidden God. Neither is the sublime communication nor the sensible awareness of His nearness a sure testimony of His gracious presence, nor is dryness and a lack of these a reflection of His absence. A person who wants to find Him should leave all things through affection and will, enter within himself in deepest recollection, and regard things as though they were nonexistence. God is hidden in the soul. You yourself are His dwelling and His secret chamber and hiding place. God is never absent. In order to find Him you should forget all your possessions and all creatures and hide in the interior, secret chamber of your spirit. And there, closing the door behind you, you should pray to your Father in secret. Remaining hidden with Him, you will experience Him in hiding, and love and enjoy Him in hiding. God is the substance and concept of faith, and faith is the secret and the mystery. Faith and love are like the blind man’s guides. They will lead you along a path unknown to you, to the place where God is hidden. Pay no attention to anything which your faculties can grasp. You should never desire satisfaction in what you understand about God, but in what you do not understand about Him Never stop with loving and delighting in your understanding and experience of God, but love and delight in what is neither understandable nor perceptible of Him. Spiritual wounds of love are very delightful and desirable. The soul would desire to be ever dying a thousand deaths from the thrusts of the lance, for they make her go out of herself and enter into God. The wounded soul, strengthened from the fire caused by the wound, went out after her Beloved Who wounded her, calling for Him, that He might heal her. One goes out from oneself through self-forgetfulness.
Charity | Contempt | Need | Practice | Silence | Work | Understand |
To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
Your soul will be blessed, Sister, if you bear patiently the troubles of mind and body His Providence sends you, or which come to you from within and without.
There is nothing good that does not meet with opposition, and it should not be valued any less because it encounters objections.
Cyprian, aka Saint Cyprian of Carthage, fully Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus NULL
The world is going mad in mutual bloodshed. And murder, which is considered a crime when people commit it singly, is transformed into a virtue when they do it en masse. The offenders acquire impunity by increasing their ravaging.