This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The dominant values of activity and productivity, the overwhelming importance of close family ties as well as friendships, the reliance on good health, and now, in old age, the concern with the depletion of one’s life savings and the fear of senility and dependence are commonly held attitudes…
Age | Dependence | Family | Fear | Good | Health | Life | Life | Old age | Old |
Four simple questions have shaped the spiritual journeys of pilgrims and seekers for thousands of years. These questions enable us to gently awaken the four fundamental realms of inner life: Identity, Love, Daily Practice, and Kindness. (1) Who am I? We have within us an essential nature that is whole and unbroken. (2) What do I love? (3) How shall I live, knowing I will die? Every moment of life is a precious gift. (4) What is my gift to the family of the earth?
Earth | Family | Kindness | Knowing | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Practice | Will |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers
Lead your life so you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip!
Sisters of the Immaculate Heart NULL
What the world desperately needs is bridges, individuals and groups, like Christ himself, put an end to all the distances which divide men and which hinder their access to truth, dignity, and full human development. This is another way of saying that the world needs community; it needs models of community to convince it that the diverse and warring elements in the human family can be reconciled.
I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress...It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitude is right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.
Challenge | Choice | Day | Decision | Extreme | Hope | Progress | Right |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappily in its own way.
Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, sometimes referred to as Pachacuti
Governors must never forget that he who is unable to run his own house and family is still less competent to be entrusted with public matters.
Philippa Foot, fully Philippa Ruth Foot, née Bosanquet
One of the things a wise man knows and a foolish man does not is that such things as social position, wealth, and the good opinion of the world, are too dearly bought at the cost of health or friendship or family ties.
Cost | Family | Good | Health | Man | Opinion | Position | Wealth | Wise | World | Friendship |
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
A man can't make a place for himself in the sun if he keeps taking refuge under the family tree.
Jack L. Nelson & William B. Stanley
Most teachers do not like controversy. A study some years ago found that 92 percent of teachers did not initiate discussion of controversial issues, 89 percent didn't discuss controversial issues when students brought them up, and 79 percent didn't believe they should. Among the topics that teachers felt children were interested in discussing but that most teachers believed should not be discussed in the classroom were the Vietnam War, politics, race relations, nuclear war, religion, and family problems such as divorce.
Children | Controversy | Discussion | Family | Politics | Problems | Race | Religion | Study | War |
To repeat what others have said, requires education, to challenge it, requires brains.
The most powerful lessons about ethics and morality do not come from school discussions or classes in character-building. They come from family life where people treat one another with respect, consideration, and love.
Character | Consideration | Ethics | Family | Life | Life | Love | Morality | People | Respect |
Throughout human history, progress has come through the men and women who dared to challenge the precepts and dogmas that curtailed freedoms. Freethinking (which includes skepticism, rationalism, unbelief, atheism, agnosticism, humanism and so forth) has made great and lasting contributions to human freedom, human rights, and human equality.
Atheism | Challenge | Equality | Freedom | History | Men | Progress | Rights | Skepticism | Unbelief |
If you want a place in the sun, you must leave the shade of the family tree.
Family |