This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The most effective kind of prayer is that in which we place ourselves, in our hearts, before God, relinquishing all resistance, letting go of all secret irritation, opening ourselvse to the truth, to God’s holy mystery, saying over and over again, “I desire truth, I am ready to receive it, even this truth which causes me such concern, if it be the truth. Give me the light to know it – and to see how it bears on me.”
Faith is sensitiveness to what transcends nature, knowledge and will, awareness of the ultimate, alertness to the holy dimension of all reality. Faith is a force in man, lying deeper than the stratum of reason and its nature cannot be defined in abstract, static terms. To have faith is not to infer the beyond from the wretched here, but to perceive the wonder that is here and to be stirred by the desire to integrate the self into the holy order of living. It is not a deduction but an intuition, not a form of knowledge, of being convinced without proof, but the attitude of mind toward ideas whose scope is wider than its own capacity to grasp.
Abstract | Awareness | Capacity | Desire | Faith | Force | Ideas | Intuition | Knowledge | Lying | Man | Mind | Nature | Order | Reality | Reason | Self | Will | Wonder | Awareness |
The only security that man has ever had has been in the warm enfoldment of the natural and social environment.
Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley
The future must have as its basis the consciousness of sanctity in existence – in common things, in the events of human life, in the gradually comprehended interlocking whole revealed to the human desire for knowledge, n the benedictions of beauty and love, in the catharsis, the sacred purging, of the moral drama in which character is pitted against fate and even deepest tragedy may uplift the mind.
Beauty | Character | Consciousness | Desire | Events | Existence | Fate | Future | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Sacred | Tragedy | Fate | Beauty |
The truly religious man is always more concerned about what God will do in him that what He will do to him; in this intense desire for purification of his motives he almost wishes that heaven and hell were blotted out, that he might serve God for Himself alone.
Desire | God | Heaven | Hell | Man | Motives | Will | Wishes | God |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
To be constantly without desire is the way to have a vision of the mystery of heaven and earth, for constantly to have desire is the means by which their limitations are seen.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. It’s the only path to serenity.
Care | Heart | Money | People | Security | Serenity | Will | Work | Approval |
That government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration, and that whenever any government shall be found inadequate, or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the weal.
Administration | Danger | Government | Majority | People | Reform | Right | Security | Government | Danger | Happiness |
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
Administration | Conduct | Desire | Earth | Friend | Power |
Mahāyāna Religious Ideal "Great Vehicle" NULL
The cause of all suffering is rooted in desire. If the desire is extinguished suffering has no foot hold.
There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.
Earth | Opportunity | Security |
The peace of God is peace within ourselves. The unrest of human life comes largely from our being torn asunder by contending impulses. Conscience pulls this way, passion that. Desire says, “Do this”; reason, judgment, prudence say “It is your peril if you do!” One desire fights against another. And so the man is rent asunder. There must be the harmonizing of all the being if there is to be real rest of spirit.
Conscience | Desire | God | Judgment | Life | Life | Man | Passion | Peace | Peril | Prudence | Prudence | Reason | Rest | Spirit | God |
The degradation of our society today stems mainly from the lack of awareness of what is within us. Being ignorant of our true nature, we seek external solutions to the problems rooted within. In our search for security and prosperity we have abandoned ourselves and are constantly drifting away from human values and virtues.
Awareness | Nature | Problems | Prosperity | Search | Security | Society | Society | Awareness |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you; and this is done by depriving them of all means of injuring you, or by bestowing such benefits upon them that it would not be reasonable for them to desire any change of fortune.
Change | Desire | Fortune | Government | Means |
Pope Paul VI, born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini NULL
The desire to come together as brothers must not lead to a watering-down or subtracting from the truth. Our dialogue must not weaken our attachment to our faith.