This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The plainest historical evidence for the effectiveness of religion as a positive social form lies in the history of the Jews.
Hillel said: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man; that is the essence of the Torah, the rest is commentary: go and learn.
The peace of God is peace within ourselves. The unrest of human life comes largely from our being torn asunder by contending impulses. Conscience pulls this way, passion that. Desire says, “Do this”; reason, judgment, prudence say “It is your peril if you do!” One desire fights against another. And so the man is rent asunder. There must be the harmonizing of all the being if there is to be real rest of spirit.
Conscience | Desire | God | Judgment | Life | Life | Man | Passion | Peace | Peril | Prudence | Prudence | Reason | Rest | Spirit | God |
Randy Pausch, fully Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch
Whatever news we get about the scans, I’m not going to die when we hear it. I won’t die the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. So today, right now, well this is a wonderful day. And I want you to know how much I am enjoying it… That’s the way the rest of my life would need to be lived.
It turns out that our notions of what a “self” is and how it might feel fulfilled have no more objective status than most of the rest of reality. It seems we make ourselves up as we go alone.
[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.
Bible | History | Mankind | Wickedness |
John Oxenham, pen name for Wiliam Arthur Dunkerley
To every soul there openeth a high way and a low; the high soul climbs the high way, the low soul gropes the low. And in between, on these misty flats, the rest drift to and fro. To every soul there openeth a high way and a low; and every man decideth which way his soul will go.
Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
All big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.
History |
Winwood Reade, fully William Winwood Reade
The history of morals is the extension of the reciprocal or selfish virtues from the clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, from the nation to all communities living under the same government, civil or religious, then people of the same colour, and finally to all mankind.
Government | History | Mankind | People |