This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Once you conquer your selfish self, all your darkness will change to light.
Envy |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
If the wine drinker has a deep gentleness in him, he will show that when drunk. But if he has hidden anger and arrogance, those appear.
Envy |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Infinite mercy flows continually But you're asleep and can't see it.
Envy |
Ruth Benedict, born Ruth Fulton
As a matter of history great developments in art have often been remarkably separate from religious motivation and use.
Sacha Guitry, fully Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry
When you listen to Mozart, the silence that follows is still Mozart.
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to — no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
I asked the whole frame of the world about my God; and he answered, 'I am not He, but He made me'.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Wherever there are three persons, even though they are laymen, there is the church. Every man lives by his own faith, and God does not distinguish between classes. Since, in cases of necessity, you have the right to act as a priest, then you must also accept priestly discipline. It is God's will that all of us should be in the right spiritual state, at any time or place, to administer His sacraments.
Affliction | God | Gold | Good | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue | God | Vice |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
Just as a man whose head is submerged in the water cannot breathe the subtle air which is poured upon the atmosphere's empty opening, so he who immerses his mind in the cares of the present life cannot take in the breath that is a perception of the new world.
Experience | Man | Virtue | Virtue | Wise |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
It is said that the highest state of prayer is reached when the intellect goes beyond the flesh and the world, and while praying is utterly free from matter and form. He who maintains this state has truly attained unceasing prayer.”
Distinguish | Fighting | God | Hate | Important | Labor | Practice | Sin | Strength | Struggle | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Wickedness | God | Learn | Think |
Let us not lower our eyes without humiliating at the same time the heart; let not others think we want the last place without truly desiring it.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
Religion brought forth riches, and the daughter devoured the mother.
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
Listen, I entreat you, all that are careful for this life, and procure books that will be medicines for the soul… get at least the New Testament, the Apostolic Epistles, the Acts, the Gospels, for your constant teachers. If grief befalls you, dive into them as into a chest of medicines; take from there comfort for your trouble, be it loss, or death, or bereavement of relations; or rather do not merely dive into them but take them wholly to yourself, keeping them in your mind.
Envy |
There cannot be a supreme evil, because... although evil always lessens good, yet it never wholly consumes it; and thus, since good always remains, nothing can be wholly and perfectly bad.