This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Not to go out and do your best is to sacrifice your gift.
A sense of “belonging,” a sense of meaningful association with others, has never required that one sacrifice his individuality as part of the bargain. Why, then, do so many rush to embrace a philosophy which tells them it is necessary.
Association | Individuality | Philosophy | Sacrifice | Sense | Association |
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.
Cause | Consequences | Evil | Reality | Reason | Sacrifice |
My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.
In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.
Pride counterbalances all our miseries, for it either hides them, or, if it discloses them, boasts of that disclosure. Pride has such a thorough possession of us, even in the midst of our miseries and faults, that we are prepared to sacrifice life with joy, if it may be talked of.
What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.
Individual | Liberty | Little | Men | Sacrifice | Will | World |
Security is a feeling that there is a larger and more enduring life surrounding, appreciating, upholding the individual, and guaranteeing that his efforts and sacrifice will not be in vain.
The ‘great’ commitment is so much easier than the ordinary everyday one - and can all too easily shut our hearts to the latter. A willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice can be associated with, and even produce, a great hardness of heart.
Commitment | Heart | Sacrifice |
[During dire days under the Nazis] Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he’s called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.
Action | Conscience | Faith | Freedom | God | Life | Life | Man | Principles | Question | Reason | Sacrifice | Virtue | Virtue | God |
If the higher companionship which love should be does not make men and women nobler, more generous, more ready to sacrifice even their beautiful life for a lofty purpose, there is a suspicion that their love is not love but a combination of egoisms.
Life | Life | Love | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Sacrifice | Suspicion | Companionship |