This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Oh, plain, and easy, and simple way of salvation! Wanting no subtleties of art or science, no borrowed learning, no refinements of reason; but all done by the simple natural motion of every heart that truly longs after God. For no sooner is the finite desire of the creature in motion towards God, but the infinite desire of God is united with it, co-operates with it; and in this united desire of God and the creature is the salvation and life of the soul brought forth.
Inconvenient | Love | Spirit | Temper | Will |
We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure upsurges of fresh spiritual vitality, breaking through and revolting against the hardened structure of the older body, and claiming, in the name of the Spirit, liberty from outward forms and institutions. And we have seen how rapidly they develop their own forms, their own structures of thought, of language, and of organization. It would surely be a very unbiblical view of human nature and history to think -- as we so often, in our pagan way, do -- that this is just an example of the tendency of all things to slide down from a golden age to an age of iron, to identify the spiritual with the disembodied, and to regard visible structure as equivalent to sin. We must rather recognize here a testimony to the fact that Christianity is, in its very heart and essence, not a disembodied spirituality, but life in a visible fellowship, a life which makes such total claim upon us, and so engages our total powers, that nothing less than the closest and most binding association of men with one another can serve its purpose.
Firmness | Grief | Life | Life | Perfection | Pious | Poverty | Pride | Strength | Weakness | Will |
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
The happiness and peace attained by those satisfied by the nectar of spiritual tranquillity is not attained by greedy persons restlessly moving here and there.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
In regard to sensory objects, the functions of all four organs are simultaneous as well as successive. In respect to imperceptible things, the functioning of the three internal organs is preceded by that of the fourth (cognition).
Darkness |
How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we.
So wise so young, they say, do never live long. Richard III, Act iii, Scene 1
You are not happy because you are well. You are well because you are happy. You are not depressed because trouble has come to you, but trouble has come to you because you are depressed. You can change your thoughts and feelings, and then the outer things will come to correspond, and indeed there is no other way of working.
Books | Day | God | Nature | Power | Teach | Truth | Will | Following | God | Learn | Think | Truths |
Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
The solitude of the subject results from its relationship with the existing over which it is master. This mastery over existing is the power of beginning, of starting out from itself, starting out from itself neither to act nor to think, but to be.
Events | Good | Kindness | Little | Man | Organization | Politics | Utopia |
One good word quenches more heat than a bucket of water.
Thinking | Wickedness |
Who takes an eel by the tail and a woman at her word, may say he holds nothing.
Love |