This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. Thus worry continues to grow into the mental life of man until the ego-mind is burdened by the past. Worry is also experienced in relation to the future when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case it seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations. But, things can never be helped merely by worrying. Besides, many of the things which are anticipated never turn up, or if they do occur, they turn out to be much more acceptable than they were expected to be. Worry is the product of feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. It is a living through of sufferings which are mostly our own creation. Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life.
Energy | Future | Imagination | Joy | Justify | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Past | Worry |
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.
Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell
One of the things I benefited from when I started this business was that I didn’t know anything. I was just instinct with no preconceived notions. This enabled me to learn and change quickly without having to worry about maintaining any kind of status quo, like some of my bigger competitors.
Michael Jordan, fully Michael Jeffrey Jordon, aka MJ, Air Jordan and His Airness
The basketball court for me, during a game, is the most peaceful place I can imagine. On the basketball court, I worry about nothing. When I'm out there, no one can bother me.
Worry |
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
I thought about his dilapidated church. In some ways we all have a hole in our roof, a gap through which tears fall and bad events blow like harsh wind. We feel vulnerable; we worry about what storm will strike next. But with a little faith, people can fix things, and they truly can change, because at that moment, you could not believe otherwise.
Events | Little | People | Tears | Thought | Will | Worry | Thought |
If we can say with Seneca, "This life is only a prelude to eternity," then we need not worry so much over the fittings and furnishings of this ante-room; and more than that, it will give dignity and purpose to the fleeting days to know they are linked with the eternal things as prelude and preparation.
Dignity | Eternal | Life | Life | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Worry |
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.
The more technique you have the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is the less there is.
Worry |
The man who can put himself in the place of other men, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for him.
Future | Man | Need | Worry | Understand |
What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair dies to become a piece of firewood, and the firewood dies to become ash. You give different names to the different shapes the wood takes, but the basic substance is there always. If we could always remember this, we would never worry about the loss of anything. We never lose anything; we never gain anything. By such discrimination we put an end to unhappiness.
Care may acquire wealth, which, when acquired, care must guard and worry about.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Success or failure is the just result of what you have done in the past, plus what you do now... You should transfer your attention from failure to success, from worry to calmness, from mental wanderings to concentration, from restlessness to peace, from peace to the divine bliss within.
Attention | Failure | Peace | Restlessness | Worry | Failure |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
Philip Larkin, fully Philip Arthur Larkin
Seriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters, because it not only takes up time when you might be doing individual private things, but it prevents you storing up the psychic energy that can then be released to create art or whatever it is. It's terrible the way we scotch silence & solitude at every turn, quite suicidal. I can't see how to avoid it, without being very rich or very unpopular, & it does worry me, for time is slipping by, and nothing is done. It isn't as if anything was gained by this social frivolity, It isn't: it's just a waste.
Art | Energy | Fault | Grave | Individual | Life | Life | Nothing | Silence | Solitude | Time | Worry | Art | Fault | Think |