This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Truth, not in distinct and clear-cut definitions but in the limpid obscurity of a single intuition that unites all dogmas in one simple Light, shining into the soul directly from God’s eternity, without the medium of created concept, without the intervention of symbols or of language or the likeness of material things. Here the Truth is One Whom we not only know and possess but by Whom we are known and possessed. Here theology ceases to be a body of abstractions and becomes a Living Reality Who is God Himself.
Body | Eternity | God | Intuition | Language | Light | Obscurity | Obscurity | Reality | Soul | Theology | Truth | God |
Man is not the creature of a drawing room or the Stock Exchange, but a lonely soul confronted by the Source of all souls.
life begins here upon earth, and the soul of man lives and breathes where it loves; and love, in living faith, has strength enough to make the soul of man experience unity with God – two natures in a single spirit and love.
Earth | Enough | Experience | Faith | God | Life | Life | Love | Man | Soul | Spirit | Strength | Unity | God |
Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms, thou mayest always stand fast in the Lord within thee, to that degree as if thy soul had already entered the always present now of eternity.
To save one’s soul is not an instantaneous deed, but a life-long adventure… The creation of a type of personality through loyalty to concrete values as these are at issue in everyday experience.
Adventure | Experience | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Personality | Soul |
When an apostle seeks to win a soul to religion… he appeals to understanding, not to imagination, for he knows that his task is not to create something, but to call aloud to that which is slumbering in the depths of the heart.
Heart | Imagination | Religion | Soul | Understanding |
Richard Niebuhr, fully Helmut Richard Niebuhr
Without a personal sense of vocation gained in the solitary struggles of the soul with its Maker and Redeemer the minister will always be deficient.
John Henry Newman, aka Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman
Nothing is more difficult than to realize that every man has a distinct soul that every one of all of the millions who live or have lived, is as whole and independent a being in himself, as if there were no one else in the whole world but he.
New York Times Editorial on the Holocaust NULL
It was and it is to do all that can be done to eradicate an evil thing out of our civilization… a thing so incredibly wicked that it would not have been believable of modern man if it had not actually occurred. This evil, this wickedness began with intolerance and hate in a few men’s hearts. It spread until it almost wrecked the world. Now the obligation is to remember, not in hate, not in the spirit of revenge, but so that this spirit cannot ever flourish again so long as man remains on earth. And to this end, let us begin, each of us, by looking into our own hearts.
Civilization | Earth | Evil | Hate | Intolerance | Man | Men | Obligation | Revenge | Spirit | Wickedness | World |
Boris Pasternak, fully Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn’t just fiction, it’s a part of our fortune. Our nervous system isn’t just a fiction, it’s a part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like the teeth in our mouth. It can’t be forever violated with impunity.
Body | Day | Fortune | Health | Life | Life | Majority | Misfortune | Nothing | Soul | Space | System |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared – this must someday become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth.
John Henry Newman, aka Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman
Oh how we hate one another for the love of God.
Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new, sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!
Amos Oz, birth name Amos Klausner
When people have peace, they hate it and long for excitement, and when they have excitement, they want peace.
Excitement | Hate | Peace | People |