This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
To love our neighbors as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all the modes of existence of myself. Nor does it mean that we should never make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer. But we should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of it.
Existence | Love | People | Relationship | Universe | Wisdom |
Truth is always congruous and agrees with itself; every truth in the universe agrees with all others.
There are two things necessary for a traveler to bring him to the end of his journey - a knowledge of his way, a perseverance in his walk. If he walk in a wrong way, the faster he goes the farther he is from home; if he sit still in the right way, he may know his home, but never come to it: discreet stays make speedy journeys. I will first then know my way, ere I begin my walk; the knowledge of my way is a good part of my journey.
Good | Journey | Knowledge | Perseverance | Right | Will | Wisdom | Wrong |
H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
Better it is toward the right conduct of life, to consider what will be the end of a thing, than what is the beginning of it: for what promises fair at first may prove ill, and what seems at first a disadvantage, may prove very advantageous.
Beginning | Better | Conduct | Life | Life | Right | Will | Wisdom |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You.
Individual | Universe | Wisdom |
Human law has the true nature of law only in so far as it corresponds to the right reason, and therefore is derived from the eternal law. In so far as it falls short of right reason, a law is said to be a wicked law; and so, lacking the true nature of law, it is rather a kind of violence.
Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, known also as Fares Chidiac, Faris Al Chidiac
They are quite different from us, and yet they are human beings! They have their customs and we have ours. Each side thinks his are the only right ones… These customs are not so important after all. It seems that the rules of life a society sets up for itself cannot be the last criterion of “good” and “bad,” “beneficial” and “harmful.”
Good | Important | Life | Life | Right | Society | Society |
I have traversed the universe from the deepest depths of the empyrean to the peristaltic movements of the atoms in the elementary cell. And on all sides stretched mysteries, marvels, and prodigies without limit, without number, and without end. I felt the unfathomable thought, of which the Universe is the symbols, live and burn within me; I touched, proved, tasted, embraced my nothingness and my immensity; I kissed the hem of the garments of god, and gave Him thanks for being Spirit and for being Life.
Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger
The consciousness of abiding safety in the bosom of the Church is one of the most serious obstacles to an honest confrontation with the Christian faith.
Church | Consciousness | Faith |
Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.
Action | Diversity | Good | Inquiry | Intention | Man | Right | Truth | Wisdom |
Bishops' Pastoral Letter "Economic Justice For All" NULL
From the patristic period to the present, the Church has affirmed that misuse of the world’s resources or appropriation of them by a minority of the world’s population betrays the gift of creation since “whatever belongs to God belongs to all.”