This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Living is death; dying is life. On this side of the grave we are exiles, on that, citizens; on this side, orphans; on that, children; on this die, captives; on that, freemen; on this side disguised, unknown; on that, disclosed and proclaimed the sons of God.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and through they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Children | Dreams | Life | Life | Longing | Love | Tomorrow |
Chief Seattle, also spelled Seathl
This we know. The earth does not belong to man: man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in democracies are therefore constantly haunted by the desire of obtaining wealth, and they naturally turn their attention to trade and manufactures, which appear to offer the readiest and most efficient means of success. In this respect they share the instincts of the poor without feeling the same necessities; say, rather, they feel the most imperious of all necessities, that of not sinking in the world.
Attention | Desire | Father | Fortune | Man | Means | Men | Respect | Success | Wealth | Will | World | Respect |
Augustus or Augustus Caesar, fully Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, NULL
No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons.
My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind.
A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.
Not satisfied with great principles, they were avaricious of great achievements. They subdued forests, organized emigration, marched westward under the star of empire. They achieved Louisburg and Concord and Lexington, and Paul Revere's ride and the Charter Oak and Bennington and Gaspee Point, and Harvard and Yale and Bowdoin and Dartmouth. They preserved the union, annihilated slavery, crushed repudiation, made the promises of the nation equal to gold. They have spoken the word of protest and pleading in behalf of the Chinaman and the Indian and the African, in behalf of a reformed civil service, and of honest elections. And where has there been a battle for God and humanity that they and their sons have not been in it?
Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions and phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own. And thus, the sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no pains in their education, so often grow up mere parroters of what they have learnt, incapable of using their minds except in the furrows traced for them.
I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Children | History | Liberty | Mathematics | Order | Politics | Right | Study |
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
Seven Laws of Salem: Give children the opportunity for self-discovery. [Give them a chance to discover themselves.] Make the children meet with triumph and defeat. [See to it that they experience both success and defeat.] Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement in the common cause. [See to it that they have the chance to forget themselves in the pursuit of a common cause.] Provide periods of silence. [See to it that there are periods of silence.] Train the imagination. [Train the imagination, the ability to participate and plan.] Make games important but not predominant. [Take sports and games seriously, but only as part of the whole.] Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the enervating sense of privilege. [Free them of the rich and influential parents and from the paralysing influence of wealth and privelege.]
Ability | Chance | Children | Experience | Important | Influence | Opportunity | Parents | Sense | Success | Wealth |
Leon Shenendoah, elected Tadodaho, aka Chief Leon Shenendoah
Look behind you. See your sons and your daughters. They are your future. Look farther, and see your sons' and your daughters' children and their childrens' children even unto the Seventh generation. That's the way we were taught. Think about it: you yourself are a Seventh Generation!
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
Through it all, despite it all, Eddie privately adored his old man, because sons will adore their fathers through even the worst behaviour. It is how they learn devotion. Before he can devote himself to God or a woman, a boy will devote himself to his father, even foolishly, even beyond explanation.
Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL
[paraphrase] Of the three goods, the Mohists' concept of “order” (zhi) calls for special attention. This is a complex good comprising a variety of conditions the Mohists probably regard as constitutive of the good social life. From passages in which the Mohists characterize zhi (order) and its opposite, luan (disorder, turmoil), we find that the elements of “order” include at least four sorts of conditions. All levels of society conform to unified moral standards, and incentives and disincentives based on these standards are administered fairly by virtuous leaders, as described in Mohist political theory. Peace and social harmony prevail, characterized negatively as the absence of crime, deceit, harassment, injury, conflict, and military aggression. Members of society manifest virtues constitutive of the proper performance of their relational social roles as ruler or subject, father or son, and elder or younger brother. Order obtains only when the ruler is benevolent, his subjects are loyal, fathers are kind, sons are filial, and elder and younger brothers display brotherly love and respect. (Like much ancient thought, Mohism has a sexist bias, and with few exceptions the texts disregard the social roles of women.) Community members habitually engage in reciprocal assistance and charity, sharing information, labor, education, and surplus goods and aiding the destitute and unfortunate. In summary, “benefit to the world” is a general conception of welfare comprising social harmony and public security; economic prosperity and a thriving population and family; reciprocal cooperation among neighbors and charity for the needy; and good social relations, manifested in the exercise of virtues corresponding to the fundamental social roles.
Absence | Charity | Cooperation | Display | Father | Good | Harmony | Love | Order | Prosperity | Public | Regard | Society | Surplus | Society |
Peacemaking is not only a central characteristic of the Gospel, peacemaking is the greatest need of the world today. We are the daughters and sons of God, and that means we are called to be peacemakers.
Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL
Rabbi Akiva used to say: “Beloved is the man that he was created in the image of G-d; an extra love is made known to him that he was created in G-d's image”, as it says (Genesis 9:6) “for in His own image G-d made humankind. Beloved are the Jews that they are called sons to G-d; an extra love is made known to them that they are called sons to G-d”, as it says (Deuteronomy 14:1) “You are children of the Lord your G-d. Beloved are the Jews that there has been given to them the precious instrument; an extra love is made known to them that they were given the precious instrument of the world's creation”, as it says (Proverbs 4:2) “For I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching.”