This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The first and greatest imperative of command is to be present in person. Those who impose risk must be seen to share it… It is the spectacle of heroism, or its immediate report, that fires the blood.
Power can be invested with a sense of direction only by moral principles. It is the function of morality to command the use of power, to forbid it, to limit it.
Morality | Power | Principles | Sense |
Oscar Romero, formally Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez
No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
Nothing… refreshes and aids a sick man so much as the affection of his friends.
The world has the wealth and resources to provide everyone the opportunity to live a decent life. We consume too much when market relationships displace the bonds of community, compassion, culture, and place. We consume too much when consumption becomes an end in itself and makes us lose affection and reverence for the natural world.
Compassion | Culture | Life | Life | Opportunity | Reverence | Wealth | World |
Since the moral law can rightfully command us to live as aspirants to eternity, eternity must really be our destination.
Elie Wiesel, fully Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel
Think about it. God decided for the first and last time... to reveal himself... You would expect God to give you a lecture on theology at least. After all it’s his domain... Instead... He gave you all kind of command about human relations: Thou shall not kill; Thou shall not lie;... Why did He do that? It was so simple. But this was the lesson: God can take care of Himself. What He had to give man was the dignity of man.
Care | Dignity | God | Kill | Lesson | Man | Theology | Time | God |
The secular or freethinking humanist looks into the self for guidance; response to need comes from deep human feelings of compassion, concern for others, and a desire to help. The freethinker is not motivated by a divine command to act, but rather by personal humanistic response to pain, loneliness, hunger, and homelessness. Benevolent actions are not accompanied by a need to convert or indoctrinate, but rather flow from deep human wellsprings of empathy and a desire to improve the condition of the world.
Compassion | Desire | Empathy | Feelings | Guidance | Hunger | Loneliness | Looks | Need | Pain | Self | World |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
The cause of the breakdowns of civilizations is not to be found in loss of command over the human environment, as measured by the encroachment of alien human forces... The most that an alien enemy has achieved has been to give an expiring suicide his coup de grace.
Reason command us far more imperiously than a master; in disobeying the former, fools.
Reason |
The author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he has published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it.
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
Wealth |
War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated. Civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. They vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert their natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very nature of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity, whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved.
Body | Charity | Danger | Equity | Justice | Light | Manners | Nature | Obligation | People | Politics | Rage | Taste | War | Danger |
How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?