This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So when a great man dies for years beyond our ken the light he leaves behind him lies upon the paths of men.
When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can't approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
Hope is a vigorous principle; it is furnished with light and heat to advise and execute; it sets the head and heart to work, and animates a man to do his utmost. And thus, by perpetually pushing and assurance, it puts a difficulty out of countenance, and makes a seeming impossibility give way.
Difficulty | Heart | Impossibility | Light | Man |
Anne Sullivan, fully Johanna "Anne" Mansfield Macy
Certain periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation point where a clear light falls upon a world previously dark.
History | Humanity | Light | Observation | World |
Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as bright bodies emit rays to a distance, and flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends.
Better | Friend | Joy | Light | Love | Poverty | Words | Friends |
Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, hope, faith, and love; and thou shalt find strength when life's surges rudest roll, light when thou else wert blind.
Man, during his abode in this world, knows not his own heart. Self-love spreads a veil over his imperfections, and conceals the knowledge of his true state, both from himself and from others. But on this day he shall be seen in his true dress, both by himself and by all mankind. The just man is disregarded and despised in this world: he is subjected in a great measure to the will of the sinner; his life is esteemed folly, and his end without honour. He, likewise, shall be seen in his true light on this day, and shall be honoured before the whole world with that honour to which his merits are entitled.
Day | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Man | Self-love | Will | World |
Jerome K. Jerome, fully Jerome Klapka Jerome
The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone. Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night's heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but angels of God.
Angels | Day | Evil | Heart | Language | Life | Life | Light | Little | Pain | Pity | Sorrow | World | Wrong |
Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
The contemplation of night should lead to elevating rather than to depressing ideas. Who can fix his mind on transitory and earthly things, in presence of those glittering myriads of worlds; and who can dread death or solitude in the midst of this brillings, animated universe, composed of countless suns and worlds, all full of light and life and motion?
Contemplation | Death | Dread | Life | Life | Light | Mind | Solitude | Contemplation |
Johann Pestalozzi, fully Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
I wish to wrest education from the outworn order of doddering old teaching hacks as well as from the new-fangled order of cheap, artificial teaching tricks, and entrust it to the eternal powers of nature herself, to the light which God has kindled and kept alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interests of parents who desire their children grow up in favour with God and with men.
Children | Desire | Education | Eternal | God | Light | Nature | Order | Parents | God | Old |
I wish to wrest education from the outworn order of doddering old teaching hacks as well as from the new-fangled order of cheap, artificial teaching tricks, and entrust it to the eternal powers of nature herself, to the light which God has kindled and kept alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interests of parents who desire their children grow up in favour with God and with men.
Children | Desire | Education | Eternal | God | Light | Nature | Order | Parents | God | Old |
He that has light within his own clear breast May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself his own dungeon.
Inspirations are brief, sporadic and rare. In the long interims the mind is often dull, bare and vapid. There is hardly a soul that can radiate more light than it receives. To perform a mitzvah is to meet the spirit. But the spirit is not something we can acquire once and for all but something we must constantly live with and pray for. For this reason the Jewish way of life is to reiterate the ritual, to meet the spirit again and again, tehs spirit in one self and the spirit that hovers over all beings.
Life | Life | Light | Mind | Reason | Self | Soul | Spirit |
Openness of mind means accessibility of mind to any and every consideration that will throw light upon the situation that needs to be cleared up, and that will help determine the consequences of acting this way or that. Efficiency in accomplishing ends which have been settled upon as unalterable can coexist with a narrowly opened mind. But intellectual growth means constant expansion of horizons and consequent formation of new purposes and new responses. These are impossible without an active disposition to welcome points of view hitherto alien; an active desire to entertain considerations which modify existing purposes. Retention of capacity to grow is the reward of such intellectual hospitality. The worst thing about stubbornness of mind, about prejudices, is that they arrest development; they shut off the mind from new stimuli. Open-mindedness means retention of the childlike attitude; closed-mindedness means premature intellectual old age.
Capacity | Consequences | Consideration | Desire | Efficiency | Ends | Growth | Light | Means | Mind | Reward | Will | Old |
John E. Hines, fully Bishop John Elbridge Hines
It is only in the light of the inescapable fact of death that a person can adequately engage and enter upon the mysterious fact of life.
Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere. Highest in the list of virtues, this anxious caring extends not only to the moral sphere but to all realms of life, to oneself and to others, to words and to thoughts, to events and to deeds. Unawed by the prevailing narrowness of mind, it persists as an attitude toward the whole of reality; to hold small things great, to take light matters seriously, to think of the common and the passing from the aspect of the lasting.
John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason
When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace.
Doctrine | Duty | Fear | God | Guilt | Light | Lord | Mystery | God |