This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Chain reaction is popularly associated with the atomic bomb, but it is no less gigantic a force in your daily life. Every word you speak, every action you perform sets up a chain of reaction that can end in a damaging explosion or a shower of blessings.
Action | Atomic bomb | Blessings | Force | Life | Life | Wisdom |
Knowledge in relationship creates division... knowledge becomes a barrier in relationship... Where there is division there must be conflict. And therefore an action born out of conflict is a non-intelligent action. So intelligent action is an action that is without friction, without conflict... Dependence is an action of a mind that is not intelligent.
Action | Dependence | Knowledge | Mind | Relationship | Wisdom |
Pamela Oliver and Gerald Maxwell
Collective action usually entails the development of a critical mass - a small segment of the population that chooses to make big contributions to the collective action... that will tend to explode, to draw in the other less interested or less resourceful members of the population and to carry the event toward its maximum potential.
D. Z. Phillips, fully Dewi Zephaniah Phillips
The prayer is an attempt at influencing the divine will. In short, one is back in the realm of superstition. It is true that love of god’s will can be found in whatever happens, but the prayer of petition is best understood, not as an attempt at influencing the ways things go, but as an expression of, and a request for, devotion to God through the way of things.
Devotion | God | Love | Prayer | Superstition | Will | Wisdom | God |
Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action; so meditate, that thou mayst do; so do, that thou mayst purchase honor; for which purchase, give God the glory.
Action | Glory | God | Honor | Life | Life | Meditation | Reward | Soul | Wisdom | God |
When two loving hearts are torn asunder, it is a shade better to be the one that is driven away into action than the bereaved twin that petrifies at home.
Necessity of action takes away fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.
Action | Aid | Cause | Crime | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Wisdom |
Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
Action | Good | Inevitable | Wisdom |
Book of Golden Precepts, aka The Book of Golden Precepts NULL
Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.