This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed… Great necessities call out great virtues.
We must honor the natural rhythms and cycles in our nature. As I look around me, I see the great tapestry of the universe woven with a magnificent ebb and flow. We are told that the entire cosmos is pulsating like our hearts and like the microcosmic atoms vibrating within us. To feel the rhythm of life is to dance to the greatest symphony of all, and to deny its pulse is to miss the essence of all expression. Life is about changes, rhythms, growth, retreat, activity, rest, unfolding, delving inward. And when the seasons of our life have left us with all the teachings they bear, there is but one lesson that remains, every beyond the effect of passing opposites: There is one unchanging life that breathes in and through us, and in which all seasons humbly come to resolution in seasonless Serenity.
Growth | Honor | Lesson | Life | Life | Nature | Resolution | Rest | Serenity | Universe |
Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility of bearing, a facial and bodily repose are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fear, his greeds, his blunder. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace.
Consciousness | Demeanor | Fear | Grace | Humility | Journey | Man | Obligation | Prayer | Pride | Repose | Selfishness | Sense | Soul |
You should remember that though another may have more money, beauty, and brains than you, when it comes to the rarer spiritual values such as charity, self-sacrifice, honor and nobility of heart, you have an equal chance with everyone to be the most beloved and honored of all people.
Beauty | Chance | Charity | Heart | Honor | Money | Nobility | People | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice |
Those who desire honor from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they delight in honor, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgment of those who speak about them.
Desire | Good | Honor | Judgment | Men | Opinion | Strength |
Wealth obviously is not the good we seek, for the sole purpose it serves is to provide the means for getting something else, pleasure, virtue and honor would have better title to be considered the good for they are to be desired for their account.
Better | Good | Honor | Means | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | Title | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |
Honor others, for honor belongs to the one who bestows it and not to the one who receives it.
Honor |