This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
One hundred volumes of international law are not the equal of a few cannons; a handful of treaties are not worth a basket of gunpowder. Cannon and gunpowder are not aids for the enforcement of given moral principles, they are implements for the creation of morality where none exists.
Law | Morality | Principles | Worth |
The function of civil law is not to teach theology or even the moral views of the legislator… The morality of divorce, birth control, liquor traffic and the like are one thing. Civil legislation about them is quite another.
I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple.
The most powerful lessons about ethics and morality do not come from school discussions or classes in character-building. They come from family life where people treat one another with respect, consideration, and love.
Character | Consideration | Ethics | Family | Life | Life | Love | Morality | People | Respect |
Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.
Ethics | Evil | Good | Life | Life | Morality | Nothing | Reverence |
All systems of morality are based on the idea that an action has consequences that legitimize or cancel it. A mind imbued with the absurd merely judges that those consequences must be considered calmly.
Absurd | Action | Consequences | Mind | Morality |