This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So the spiritual life is lived only by the aid of a spiritual equilibrium which we call Being led by the Spirit. And the self-centered person seems to have none of it. He does not sense it at all. He leans only towards self, and cannot be made to obey Spirit which has no centered interests. But It is there, and in due time will come out and lead him in Its way.
This is the spirit of our practice: love - not attachment, but something much deeper - infusing our awareness, enabling us to open to and accept the truth of each moment; and service that feels our intimate connectedness with all things and responds to the wholeness of life.
Awareness | Life | Life | Love | Practice | Service | Spirit | Truth | Wholeness |
You are an individual and ever will be. This Spirit works through centers and you are a center. It is your privilege to let this Spirit take control of your own being, and so interweave your life with Its own, that you will no longer count yourself and It as being two.
Control | Individual | Life | Life | Spirit | Will | Privilege |
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon our hearts. The spirit should not grow old.
Spirit |
Man is a being in whom existence precedes essence, that he is a free being who, in various circumstances, can want only his freedom, I have at the same time recognized that I can want only the freedom of others. Therefore, in the name of this will for freedom, which freedom itself implies, I may pass judgment on those who seek to hide from themselves the complete arbitrariness and the complete freedom of their existence. Those who hide their complete freedom from themselves out of a spirit of seriousness or by means of deterministic excuses, I shall call cowards.
Circumstances | Existence | Freedom | Judgment | Man | Means | Spirit | Time | Will |
In the spirit of faith let us begin each day, and we shall be sure to “redeem the time” which it brings to us, by changing it into something definite and eternal. There is a deep meaning n this phrase of the apostle, to redeem time. We redeem time, and do not merely use it. We transform it into eternity by living it aright.
Day | Eternal | Eternity | Faith | Meaning | Spirit | Time |
Sweetness of spirit and sunshine is famous for dispelling fears and difficulties; patience is a mighty help to the burden-bearer.
What the world craves today is a more spiritual and less formal religion. To the man or woman facing death, great conflict, the big problems of human life, the forms of religion are of minor concern, while the spirit of religion is a desperately needed source of inspiration, comfort and strength.
Comfort | Death | Inspiration | Life | Life | Man | Problems | Religion | Spirit | Strength | Woman | World |
If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt.
Contempt | Poverty | Selfishness | Spirit | World |
Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes some places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.
Attention | Faith | Fear | Man | Nations | Pleasure | Praise | Present | Rest | Sacrifice | Spirit | Superstition |
A man of a right spirit is not a man of narrow and private views, but is greatly interested and concerned for the good of the community to which he belongs, and particularly of the city or village in which he resides, and for the true welfare of the society of which he is a member.
The spirit of inquiry is fundamental to living mindfully... Inquiry doesn’t mean looking for answers, especially quick answers which come out of superficial thinking. It means asking without expecting answers, just pondering the question, carrying the wondering with you.
He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant’s pleasure to the measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.
Debt | Future | Grave | Heart | Love | Pleasure | Sorrow | Spirit | Unkindness | Will | Companionship |
The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvement on an unwilling people.
Improvement | Liberty | People | Spirit |
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.
Better | Enough | Experience | Men | Spirit | Wise | Think |