This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In this thing one man is superior to another, that he is better able to bear adversity and prosperity.
Adversity | Better | Character | Man | Prosperity |
Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowledge that they hold some greater thing within them, though they cannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir them and the utterances that come from them they perceive the power, not themselves, that moves them: I the same way, it must be, we stand towards the Supreme when we hold nous pure; we know the Divine Mind within, that which gives Being and all else of that order: but we know, too, that other, know that it is none of these, but a nobler principle than anything we know as Being; fuller and greater; above reason, mind and feeling; conferring these powers, not to be confounded with them.
Willard Quine, fully Willard Van Orman Quine
A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered, moreover, in a word - ‘Everything’.
Character | Simplicity |
Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins
Love means giving one’s self to another person fully, not just physically. When two people really love each other, this helps them to stay alive and grow. One must be loved to grow. Love’s such a precious and fragile thing that when it comes we have to hold on tightly. And when it comes, we’re very lucky because for some it never comes at all. If you have love, you’re wealthy in a way that can never be measured.
The thing that must survive you is not just the record of your practice, but the principles that are the basis of your practice.
Character | Practice | Principles |
The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
Lillian Smith, fully Lillian Eugenia Smith
Freedom is a dreadful thing unless it goes hand in hand with responsibility. Democracy among men is a specter except when the hearts of men are mature.
Character | Democracy | Freedom | Men | Responsibility |
We bury love; forgetfulness grows over it like grass; that is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
Character | Forgetfulness | Love |
Henry Suso, aka Amandus or Saint Henry Suso
All creatures have existed eternally in the divine essence, as in their exemplar. So far as they conform to the divine idea, all beings were, before their creation, one thing with the essence of God. (God creates into time what was and is in eternity.” Eternally, all creatures are God in God... So far as they are in God, they are the same life, the same essence, the same power, the same One, and nothing less.
Character | Eternity | God | Life | Life | Nothing | Power | Time | God |