This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Greta Woodrew, Pseud. for Greta Andron Smolowe
The answer is "I love you". The question is unimportant.
Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
The first key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning… for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
If the meaning of life is not a mystery, if leading meaningful lives is within the power of all of us, then we do not need to ask the question `What’s it all about?’ in despair. We can look around us and see the many ways in which life can be meaningful. We can see the value of happiness while accepting that it is not everything, which will make it easier for us at those times when it eludes us. We can learn to appreciate the pleasure of life without becoming slaves to appetites which can never be satisfied. We can see the value of success, while not interpreting that too narrowly, so that we can appreciate the project of striving to become what we want to be as well as the more visible, public signs of success. We can see the value of seizing the day, without leading us into a desperate scramble to grasp the ungraspable moment. We can appreciate the value in helping others lead meaningful lives, too, without thinking that altruism demands everything we have. And finally, we can recognize the value of love, as perhaps the most powerful motivator to do anything at all.
Altruism | Day | Despair | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mystery | Need | Pleasure | Power | Public | Question | Success | Thinking | Will | Happiness | Learn | Value |
To strengthen your intuitive ability, you need to become more sensitive to body signals such as stiff necks (which usually indicates your are locked into a power struggle and/or feel overwhelmed by too much to do), headaches, stomachaches, or sleeplessness… Intuition seems to come unbidden from external events… Slowing down and doing less is great for increasing your intuition.
Ability | Body | Events | Intuition | Need | Power | Struggle |
John M. Wilson, fully John Moulder Wilson
Are you willing to think? Consider carefully, for the answer to that question will largely determine your success or failure in life. If you develop your judgment, use it. Exercise your power of judgment as often as you can, for the first rule of good judgment is practice. The functions of your mind, no less than the muscles of your body, receive their strength through repeated use.
Body | Failure | Good | Judgment | Life | Life | Mind | Power | Practice | Question | Receive | Rule | Strength | Success | Will | Wisdom | Failure |
Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
How great a judgment, O rich man, do you draw down upon yourself! The people go hungry, and you close your granaries; the people weep, and you turn your finger-ring about. Unhappy man, who has the power but not the will to save so many souls from death.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
We are capable of finding unending meaning in a world of constant, shimmering, sometimes threatening change. The task is to keep the question of life in question, and to find in it an unending source of joy and possibility, even in the darkest of times. It is within the constant overcoming of our own limitations and habits, and of the established views of our age, that passive happiness and unreflective contentment are lost, then to be replaced by joyful activity and a glimpse of a broader, more enriching, and more responsible awareness than we have been capable of before.
Age | Awareness | Change | Contentment | Joy | Life | Life | Meaning | Question | World | Awareness | Happiness |
The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not by observation. It comes by the appreciation of the signs of the presence and power of God in our inner experience.
Appreciation | Experience | God | Heaven | Observation | Power | Appreciation | God |
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species – acquired significant power to alter nature of his world.
Earth | History | Life | Life | Nature | Power | Present | Time | World |
Omar Bradley, fully Omar Nelson Bradley
The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for power equal to your tasks.
It's said that 'power corrupts,' but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which they are insatiable, implacable.