This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Strayed in mid-youth, rouse up, nor sleep, for lo! The days of youth like clouds of smoke will pass. Ere evening falls, thou shalt be withered grass, Though morning saw thee like a lily blow. Why waste on ancestors a heated breath, Or note which progeny was Abraham’s? Whether his food be herbs or Bashan rams, Man, wretched wight, is on his way to death.
Abundance | Anger | Awe | Day | Destroy | Fate | God | Gold | Judgment | Little | Man | Praise | Regard | Riches | Silence | Trust | Vengeance | Will | Riches | Fate | God |
Sathya Sai Baba, fully Sri Sathya Sai Baba
And he is Omnipresent. There is only one Religion The Religion of love. There is only one caste. The caste of humanity. There is only one language. The language of the heart. There is only one law The law of Karma (duty). There is only one God One Goal, One Truth, One Religion, One Reason. There is only one Guru. He is God. And that Guru is without you.
Sharafuddin Ahmad ibn Yahya Maneri, fully Hazrat Makhdum Shaikh Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri
Your worth can be estimated by what you seek. If you seek a dog, your worth is that of a dog. Whoever worship God because he desires heaven is a slave of his own desire. Whoever worships Him out of fear of hell is a slave of hell, for anyone who is afraid of something is a slave of that thing.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
This divine love, beckons us to a world beyond only lovers can see with their eyes of fiery passion.
Discipline | Gold |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
When soul rises into lips you feel the kiss you have wanted.
Gold |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.
Gold |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
You soak up my soul and mingle me. Each drop of my blood cries out to the earth. We are partners, blended as one.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror up to where you're bravely working.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Wherever there are three persons, even though they are laymen, there is the church. Every man lives by his own faith, and God does not distinguish between classes. Since, in cases of necessity, you have the right to act as a priest, then you must also accept priestly discipline. It is God's will that all of us should be in the right spiritual state, at any time or place, to administer His sacraments.
Affliction | God | Gold | Good | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue | God | Vice |
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
Lord, teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me when I seek you. For I cannot seek you unless you first teach me, nor find you unless you first reveal yourself to me. Let me seek you in longing and long for you in seeking. Let me find you in love, and love you in finding.
God | Gold | Order | Understanding | God |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Books (says Bacon) can never teach the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to suppose he can receive but little light from books, nor so meanly as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.
Falsehood | Gold | Knowledge | Little | Man | Truth | Will |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind; not only the same end must be proposed, but the same means must be approved by both.
Fortitude | Gold | Integrity | Prudence | Prudence | Value |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, the last corruption of degenerate man.
Corruption | Gold | Lust | Rage |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
To resist temptation once is not a sufficient proof of honesty. If a servant, indeed, were to resist the continued temptation of silver lying in a window, when he is sure his master does not know how much there is of it, he would give a strong proof of honesty. But this is a proof to which you have no right to put a man. You know there is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
Gold | Heaven | Life | Life | Love | Mortal | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |
Nothing of real worth can be obtained without courageous working. Man owes his growth chiefly to the active striving of the will, that encounter with difficulty which he calls effort; and it is astonishing to find how often results apparently impracticable are then made possible.