This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Romances, in general, are calculated rather to fire the imagination than to inform the judgment.
Imagination | Judgment | Wisdom |
The only thought in the world that is worth anything is free thought. To free thought we owe all past progress and all hope for the future. Since when has any one made it appear that shackled thought could get on better than that which is free? Brains are a great misfortune if one is never to use them.
Better | Future | Hope | Misfortune | Past | Progress | Thought | Wisdom | World | Worth | Misfortune | Thought |
In true friendship, the meaning of life gets enfleshed... The meaning of life breaks in upon us with insistence, making us realize that we can never really be separated from someone we love so long as we carry with us always, as if in a little sack, the other person’s heart... Faith and hope lead to the... most thrilling virtue: unconditional love. It encourages us to risk it all with our whole hears open.
Faith | Heart | Hope | Life | Life | Little | Love | Meaning | Risk | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Never live in hope or expectation, while your arms are folded. God helps those that help themselves. Providence smiles on those who put their shoulders to the wheel that propels to wealth and happiness.
Expectation | God | Hope | Providence | Wealth | Wisdom | God |
If these little sparks of holy fire which I have thus heaped up together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.
Life | Life | Little | Passion | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wisdom |
Terence, full Latin name Publius Terentius Afer NULL
You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.
Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL
You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her.
Angels | Beginning | Earth | God | Good | Harm | Heaven | Hell | Kill | Lord | Love | Man | Men | Mother | Nothing | Offense | Pardon | People | Receive | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | God |
It may be that true happiness lies in the conviction that one has irremediably lost happiness. Then we can begin to move through life without hope or fear, capable of finally enlying all the small pleasures, which are the most lasting.
René Bazin, fully René François Nicolas Marie Bazin
There is no need to go searching for a remedy for the evils of the time. The remedy already exists - it is the gift of one’s self to those who have fallen so low that even hope fails them. Open wide your heart.
Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm.
Agitation | Choice | Hope | Providence | Wisdom |