This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy? To live on the unpaid labor of other men — that is blasphemy. To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body — that is blasphemy. To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips — that is blasphemy. To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy. To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob — that is blasphemy. To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many — that is blasphemy. To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men — that is blasphemy. To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain — that is blasphemy. To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy. The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers. The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer. Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought?
Applause | Better | Body | Children | Conscience | Dogma | Eternal | Fear | Harm | Judgment | Labor | Man | Men | Mob | Opinion | Order | Pain | Public | Thought | Will | Thought |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Lord of the world, O hear my psalm, And as sweet incense take my plea. My heart hath set its love on Thee And finds in speech its only balm. This thought forever haunts my mind, Some day to Thee I must return, From Thee I came and backward yearn My very fount and source to find. Not mine the merit that I stand Before Thee thus, since all is Thine, The glorious work of force divine, No product of my heart or hand. My soul to Thee was humbly bent Even before she had her birth, Before upon the sphere of earth Her heav’nly greatness made descent.
Day | Decision | Evil | Imagination | Judgment | Justify | Man | Righteousness | Scandal | Spirit | Work |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Unworthy am I of all the mercies and all the truth Which Thou hast wrought for Thy servant. Verily, O Lord my God, will I thank Thee For that Thou hast given me a holy soul, Though by my deeds I have defiled it, Polluted and profaned it with my evil inclination. But I know that if I wrought wickedly, I harmed but myself, never Thee. In sooth, at my right hand my fierce inclination As an adversary standeth, Allowing me no breathing-space to establish my tranquillity. Oft have I purposed with double bridle to lead him, From the sea of his lusts to dry land to restore him, But I could not prevail. My devices he baulked, made profanities flow from my lips. I think thoughts of simplicity, he fabricates guile and iniquity, I am for peace, and he is for war, To the point that he made me his footstool, And even in peace-time shed the blood of war. How oft have I sallied forth to combat against him, And set in battle-array My camp of service and repentance, And placed the host of Thy mercies beside me for auxiliary, For I said, if my evil inclination Shall come to one camp and shall smite it, Then the camp that is left shall escape. As I thought, so it was. For temptation has routed me and scattered my forces, So that there is nothing left me but the camp of Thy mercies. But yet I know that by these I shall overcome it, And they shall be unto me better than a city of refuge. Peradventure I shall prevail and smite it and drive it away.
Art | Cunning | Discipline | Distress | Evil | Father | God | Good | Judgment | Law | Light | Mother | Plenty | Rest | Soul | Spirit | Teach | Time | Wisdom | Hardship | Trouble | Art | God |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Strayed in mid-youth, rouse up, nor sleep, for lo! The days of youth like clouds of smoke will pass. Ere evening falls, thou shalt be withered grass, Though morning saw thee like a lily blow. Why waste on ancestors a heated breath, Or note which progeny was Abraham’s? Whether his food be herbs or Bashan rams, Man, wretched wight, is on his way to death.
Abundance | Anger | Awe | Day | Destroy | Fate | God | Gold | Judgment | Little | Man | Praise | Regard | Riches | Silence | Trust | Vengeance | Will | Riches | Fate | God |
Anthony Kenny, fully Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny
Internalized experiences of selfhood are linked to autobiographical narratives, which are linked to biographies, legal testimonies, and medical case histories, which are linked to forms of therapy and theories of the subject.
Control | Defects | Humility | Inclination | Judgment | Passion | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |
The perceptive reformer combines an ability to reform with a disposition to preserve; the man who loves change is wholly disqualified, from his lust, to be the agent of change.
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
I feel the desire to be with you all the time. Oh, an occasional absence of a week or two is a good thing to give one the happiness of meeting again, but this living apart is in all ways bad. We have had our share of separate life during the four years of war. There is nothing in the small ambition of Congressional life, or in the gratified vanity which it sometimes affords, to compensate for separation from you. We must manage to live together hereafter. I can’t stand this, and will not.
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
But now your children will utter songs and dances of Satan, like cooks, and caterers, and musicians; no one knows any psalm but it seems a thing to be ashamed of even, a mockery and a joke. There is the treasury house of all these evils. For whatsoever soil the plant stands in, such is the fruit it bears; if in a sandy and salty soil, of like nature is its fruit; if in a sweet and rich one, it is again similar. So the matter of instruction is a sort of fountain. Teach him to sing those psalms which are so full of the love of wisdom. When in these you have led him on from childhood, by little and little you will lead him forward even to the higher things.
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to deification of human nature is provided by the incarnation of God, which makes man god to the same degree as God Himself became man. For it is clear that He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for His own sake to the same degree as He lowered Himself for man's sake. This is what St. Paul teaches mystically when he says, '…that in the ages to come He might display the overflowing richness of His grace' (Eph. 2:7).
Control | Endurance | God | Grace | Judgment | Principles | Providence | God | Intellect |
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
Although it be with truth that you speak evil, this is also a crime.
Consequences | Death | Dread | Judgment |
When fear is excessive it can make many a man despair.
Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.
Conscience | Evil | Judgment | Right | Wise |
Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.
Conscience | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Happy | Judgment | Right | Thought | Thought |
The writer of stories or of novels settles on men and imitates them; he exhausts the possibilities of his characters.
Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton
No question about it, a lot of my attitude toward money stems from growing up during a pretty hardscrabble time in our country’s history: the Great Depression.