This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
Is there really as much difference as we think between the Aztec human sacrifices to their gods and the modern human sacrifices in war to the idols of nationalism and the sovereign state?
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time.
We are at ease with a moral judgment made against someone’s private sin - lust or greed. We are much less comfortable judging someone’s public ethic - those decisions that can lead to such outcomes as aggression, the abuse of the environment, the neglect of the needy.
Abuse | Aggression | Greed | Judgment | Lust | Neglect | Public | Sin |
David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
In spiritual work, there is no tangible worldly gain to be acquired, but there is instead an inner reward of pleasure, satisfaction, and even joy. Goals replace gains as motives. There is a greater freedom from living on the exciting knife edge of the moment than being a prisoner of the past or having expectations of the future.
Freedom | Future | Goals | Joy | Motives | Past | Pleasure | Reward | Work |
We are rewarded not for our good deeds but by our good deeds. The reward for doing good is becoming a better human being. The greatest compensation for any good deed is simply to have done it.
Is there then no reward for living a life of rectitude and uprightness? There is, indeed. We are rewarded not for our good deeds but by our good deeds. The reward for doing good is becoming a better human being. The greatest compensation for any good deed is simply to have done it.
Better | Compensation | Deeds | Good | Life | Life | Reward | Deeds |
This is the difference between religion and philosophy. Religion begins with the sense of the ineffable; philosophy ends with the sense of the ineffable. Religion begins where philosophy ends.
Ends | Philosophy | Religion | Sense |
Its effects on the soul is to be measured neither by the guilt nor by the temporal punishment inexorably fixed, but by that deep sense of loneliness it brings with it.
Guilt | Loneliness | Punishment | Sense | Soul |
I discovered that people are not really afraid of dying; they’re afraid of not ever having lived, not every having deeply considered their life’s higher purpose, and not ever having stepped into that purpose and at least tried to make a difference in this world.
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
Opinion |
John Kane, fully John L. Lane Jr.
The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
Deep down, below the surface of the average man’s conscience, he hears a voice whispering. “There is something not right,” no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code.
Conscience | Man | Opinion | Public | Right |
The most assiduous task of parenting is to divine the difference between boundaries and bondage.
The art of crisis management, now widely acknowledged to be the essence of statecraft, owes its vogue to the merger of politics and spectacle. Propaganda seeks to create in the public a chronic sense of crisis, which in turn justifies the expansion of executive power and the secrecy surrounding it.
Art | Politics | Power | Public | Secrecy | Sense | Art | Crisis | Propaganda |
The wake of Moses, of Buddha, of Confucius, of Lao Tse, of Christ, probably exert a greater influence over humanity today than when these men were pondering over its fate and happiness. No man ever disappears completely if he strives to do good and expects no reward outside of the joy of having contributed to the progress of mankind.
Fate | Good | Humanity | Influence | Joy | Man | Mankind | Men | Progress | Reward | Fate |