This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is only in the stillness and simplicity of presence - when we are aware of what we are experiencing, when we are here with it as it unfolds - that we can really appreciate our life and reconnect with the ordinary magic of being alive on this earth... Our life is unsatisfactory only because we are not living it fully, because instead we are pursuing a happiness that is always somewhere else, other than where we are right now.
Character | Earth | Life | Life | Magic | Right | Simplicity | Happiness |
Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are.
Elegance | Language | Power | Prudence | Prudence | Simplicity | Wisdom |
Security is never absolute... The government of a free people must take certain chances for the sake of maintaining freedom which the government of a police state avoids because it holds freedom to be of no value.
Absolute | Freedom | Government | People | Security | Wisdom | Government |
Bernard Baruch, fully Bernard Mannes Baruch
In the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.
Discipline | Freedom | Wisdom |
When we come to die, we shall be alone. From our worldly possessions we shall be about to part. Worldly friends - the friends drawn to us by our position, our wealth, or our social qualities, will leave us as we enter the dark valley. From those bound to us by stronger ties - our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sister, and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends because they and we are the friends of the same Savior - from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us. There is One who “sticketh closer than a brother” - One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end.
Children | Position | Possessions | Qualities | Wealth | Will | Wisdom | World | Friends |
Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne
Governments which suppress freedom of speech... act like children who shut their eyes in order not to be seen.
Children | Freedom of speech | Freedom | Order | Speech | Wisdom |
All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Experience | Freedom | Will | Wisdom |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
He who sees his heir in his own child, carries his eye over hopes and possessions lying far beyond his gravestone, viewing his life, even here, as a period but closed with a comma. He who sees his heir in another man’s child sees the full stop at the end of the sentence.