This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces as by his gross sins.
Character | Man | Righteousness |
Self-control and understanding, righteousness and courage, there is nothing in life more profitable than these.
Character | Control | Courage | Life | Life | Nothing | Righteousness | Self | Self-control | Understanding |
I cannot teach you the ten principles of service. But a little child and a thief can show you what they are. From the child you can learn three things: He is merry for no particular reason; never for a moment is he idle; when he needs something, he demands it vigorously. The thief can instruct you in seven things: He does his service by night; if he does not finish what he has set out to do, in one night, he devotes the next night to it; he and those who work with him love one another; he risks his life for small gains; what he takes has so little value for him that he gives it up for a very small coin; he endures blows and hardship, and it matters nothing to him; he likes his trade and would not exchange it for any other.
Character | Life | Life | Little | Love | Nothing | Principles | Reason | Service | Teach | Work | Child | Learn | Value |
He who does not teach his son a trade teaches him as it were to become a robber.
Parents represent the last stand of the amateur. Every other trade and profession has developed standards, has required study and practice and licensing before releasing the students into his work. Only one profession remains untutored and untrained -- the bearing and rearing of our children.
My trade and art is to live.
Science seeks truth and discovers rightness. Religion seeks righteousness and discovers truth. Both have acquired knowledge of creative and destructive ways, and both point the same way of right living.
Knowledge | Religion | Right | Righteousness | Science | Truth | Wisdom |
We talk about a space race. There is a space race down here on the ground. In this race every human being is superpower and the competition no longer stands a chance. Other species are bound to this or that patch of turf, and this planet. We feel bound to no patch of turn on Earth, bound only for the stars. We sacrifice a marsh, a bay, a park, a lake. We sacrifice a sparrow. We trade one countdown for another.
Chance | Competition | Earth | Race | Sacrifice | Space | Wisdom |
I have said that the soul is not more than the body, and I have said that the body is not more than the soul, and nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, and whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, and I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, and to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, and there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero, and there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, and I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, for I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.) I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, in the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and everyone is sign'd by God's name, and I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, others will punctually come for ever and ever.
Better | Body | God | Learning | Man | Men | Nothing | Object | Peace | Self | Soul | Sympathy | Will | Wisdom | Following | God | Understand |
We wake up to find the whole world building competitive trade barriers, just as we found it a few years ago building competitive armaments. We are trying to reduce armaments to preserve the world solvency. We shall have to reduce competitive trade barriers to preserve the world's sanity. As between the two, trade barriers are more destructive than armaments and more threatening to the peace of the world.
One should not (seek to) please others in an improper way, not be lavish of his words... To cultivate one’s person and fulfill one’s word is called good conduct. When the conduct is (thus) ordered, and the words are accordant with the (right) course, we have the substance of the rules of propriety... The course (of duty), virtue, benevolence, and righteousness cannot be fully carried out without the rules of propriety... nor can the clearing up of quarrels and discriminating in disputes be accomplished.
Benevolence | Conduct | Duty | Good | Right | Righteousness | Virtue | Virtue | Words |
You must ask yourself first, what God is. You must see how at the very bottom of His existence, as you conceive of it, lie these two thoughts – purpose and righteousness; how absolutely impossible it is to give God any personality except as the fulfillment of these two qualities – the intelligence that plans in love, and the righteousness that lives in duty.
Duty | Existence | Fulfillment | God | Intelligence | Love | Personality | Purpose | Purpose | Qualities | Righteousness | God |
Basic axiomatic positionalities of the ego: (1) Phenomena are either good or bad, right or wrong, just or unjust, fair or unfair. (2) The `bad’ deserve to be punished and the `good’ rewarded. (3) Things happen by accident or else they are the fault of somebody else. (4) the mind is capable of comprehending and recognizing truth from falsehood. (5) The word causes and determines one’s experiences. (6) Life is unfair because the innocent suffer while the wicked go unpunished. (7) People can be different than they are. (8) It is critical and necessary to be right. (9) It is critical and necessary to win. (10) Wrongs must be righted. (11) Righteousness must prevail. (12) Perceptions represent reality.
Accident | Ego | Falsehood | Fault | Good | Life | Life | Mind | People | Phenomena | Reality | Right | Righteousness | Truth | Wrong | Fault |
Events in the past may roughly be divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. This is what makes the trade of historian so attractive.
Words are things. Thoughts are things. Where your thoughts are, you are. When we learn to discipline and control our thoughts and feelings, and use only the positive, constructive words, sent forth with divine love, our body and mind respond to that righteousness – right-use-ness. The right use and selection of words is of vital importance but equally important is the feeling behind those words, for feeling is the motivating power that makes the words live.
Body | Control | Discipline | Feelings | Important | Love | Mind | Power | Right | Righteousness | Words | Learn |
Why will you take by force what you may obtain by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war?... We are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in friendly manner... I am not so simple as not to know it is better to eat good meat, sleep comfortably, live quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with the English, and being their friend, trade for their copper and hatchets, than to run away from them... Take away your guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy, or you may die in the same manner.
Better | Cause | Destroy | Force | Good | Love | War | Will |