This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Do you know? What does it mean that God exists? Means that justice and mercy is found and forgiveness exist. Meant to reassure the heart and soul and comfortable living heart and removes the right to be concerned and continued to his companions. Meaning... Tears will not go in vain and will not go without the fruit of patience and will not be good for nothing and will not pass the evil unchecked will not get away with crime without punishment. Means that the vineyard is to govern the existence and is not a stingy .. It is not printed decent take away what gives .. If God gave us life, he can not rob to death .. There can be negatively death to life .. But it is a move out to another life after death, then life again after the Baath and then to the mystic's in heaven forever." - Mustapha Mahmoud
"The sign of My forgiveness in the affliction is, that I make it a means to a knowledge." - Niffrari NULL
"What we love once, we love forever. Shall there be joy in heaven over those who repent, yet no forgiveness for them upon earth? " - Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
"'One should forgive, under any injury,’ says the Mahabharata. It hath been said that the continuation of species is due to man’s being forgiving. Forgiveness is holiness, by forgiveness the universe is held together. Forgiveness is the might of might; forgiveness is sacrifice; forgiveness is quiet mind. Forgiveness and gentleness are the qualities of Self-possessed. They represent eternal virtue." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
"We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. " - Peggy Noonan, born Margaret Ellen Noonan
"The first step towards forgiveness is to forget." - Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
"He who expects to change the world will be disappointed; he must change his view. When this is done, then tolerance will come, forgiveness will come, and there will be nothing he cannot bear." - Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
"God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the Nations: we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"To every person of good will, eager to work tirelessly in the building of a new civilization of love, I say once more: Offer forgiveness and receive peace!" - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski
"He who curbs his wrath merits forgiveness for his sins." - Rabbinical Proverbs
"When the soul desires the forgiveness of sin and not grace to lead a new life, that desire is hypocritical, for a true Christian desires power against sin as well as pardon for it." - Richard Sibbes (or Sibbs)
"Many people hold onto a grudge because it offers the illusion of power and a perverse feeling of security. But in fact, we are held hostage by our anger. It is never too late to forgive. But you can forgive too soon. I am especially wary of what I call "saintly forgiveness." Premature forgiveness is common among people who avoid conflict. They're afraid of their own anger and the anger of others. But their forgiveness is false. Their anger goes underground. I define forgiving as letting someone back into your heart. This returns us to a loving state -- and not merely within the relationship -- we feel good about ourselves and the world. True forgiveness isn't easy, but it transforms us significantly. To forgive is to love and to feel worthy of love. In that sense, it is always worthwhile." - Robert Karen
"Let the numerous isles rejoice with trembling, For He is high and exalted and acknowledged as One In the height of the firmament. The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice. The clouds acclaim Thee beyond every other power, In every mouth is thy unity uttered, And by the people of God is Thy praise proclaimed. And who is like to Thy people Israel, The one nation on earth, To give thanks to Thee upstanding, O God inhabiting the heights, And to proclaim Thee as One? The Lord reigneth, let the nations quake. He sitteth among the Cherubim, let the earth tremble. The scattered shalt Thou assemble and the sighing redeem, To Thy holy house Thou shalt lead them with rejoicing, And from earth’s four corners gather the exiles." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"THE DAY OF JUDGMENT - Propound a mystery, O my tongue, and give praise to God, For He hath delivered me and exalted my horn. Awake, my heart, and turn to the Almighty, And in awe of His anger let my hand be lifted to Him. Set the Most High before thee, and know that every thought And every hidden imagining are to Him not hidden. Dread the day of His wrath, and the dreadful position Wherein is help or refuge for no creature. On the day He shall judge the peoples and destroy beings And wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils And decree the fate of all potentates, officers and rulers, Nor pay regard to mighty princes. And destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful, The proud and presumptuous who rely on the preciousness of their palanquin; Who have forgotten their Creator and put their trust in their riches And prided themselves above high God, Who humbleth and uplifteth, And have rebelled against their Master, With their host and their multitude, And the silver they have acquired, and the fine gold and sapphires, And have built structures, and carved out windows, And erected palaces, and battlements and chambers, Nor remember the Almighty, But wax fat in the abundance of power, And speak arrogantly to Him And roar like young lions. But He is great and fearful, And girded about with might; He calleth the generations And from Him are the hill-tops. Doth He not regard the lowly, And abase every one that is proud? He will raise up the broken pauper And lift him from the dunghill. Woe to them for this, When their Creator shall sit in judgment, To take vengeance on them, their grown and their little ones, And they shall fall into the net, weeping bitterly, And when quaffing the cup of foaming wine Shall drain only dregs, And shall be consumed in their iniquity, And their riches shall not profit them, And all they build shall be upset As though overthrown by strangers. And the God of the ages will abhor the man of blood And will break the haughty Like a potter’s vessel, And will bring low their pride And silence their psaltery And make their voice sound Like a ghost from the dust, And demolish their battlements And their houses of pleasure, And make over their inheritance To strangers and aliens, And the gadfly shall sting them To determined destruction, And they shall be trodden of passers-by Like a ground or a street. Therefore turn ye from them and their counsels, Nor vie with them Lest your fate be as that of these arrogant." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"You should certainly safeguard your nerves and force yourself to take time, and not only for prayer and meditation, but for real rest and relaxation." - Shoghí Effendi, fully Shoghí Effendí Rabbání
"That's the secret. 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walk down a street." - Rudyard Kipling
"God is best known in not knowing him." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
"Go to him and be absolved, because he is the forgiveness of sins. Do you ask who he is? Listen to him when he says [John 6:35], I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." - Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
"God by nature is uncompounded, joined to nothing, composed of nothing, to whom nothing happens by accident; but only possessing in His own nature that which is divine, enclosing all things, Himself closed out of nothing, penetrating all things, Himself never penetrable, everywhere complete, everywhere present at the same time, whether in heaven or on earth or in the depths of the sea, incapable of being seen or measured by our senses, to be followed only by faith and venerated in our religion." - Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
"If you cannot be merciful, at least speak as though you are a sinner. If you are not a peacemaker, at least do not be a troublemaker. If you cannot be assiduous, at least in your thought be like a sluggard. If you are not victorious, do not exalt yourself over the vanquished. If you cannot close the mouth of a man who disparages his companion, at least refrain from joining him in this." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?" - Simon Wiesenthal
"We are not to be in doubt about the merits of; we should rather believe the testimonies of the angels that, after the fall into sin has been wiped away, he whom his faith has washed ascends cleansed. Let us believe that he has ascended from the desert, that is, from a dry and uncultivated place, to those flowering delights where, joined to his brother, he enjoys the pleasure of eternal life. Both are in bliss, if my prayers avail anything; no prayer of mine shall pass over without honoring you; in all my offerings I shall celebrate you. Who will forbid me to call you innocent?" - Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
"Some men, in truth, live that they may eat, as the irrational creatures, “whose life is their belly, and nothing else.” But the Instructor enjoins us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business, nor is pleasure our aim; but both are on account of our life here, which the Word is training up to immortality. Wherefore also there is discrimination to be employed in reference to food. And it is to be simple, truly plain, suiting precisely simple and artless children—as ministering to life, not to luxury. And the life to which it conduces consists of two things—health and strength; to which plainness of fare is most suitable, being conducive both to digestion and lightness of body, from which come growth, and health, and right strength, not strength that is wrong or dangerous and wretched, as is that of athletes produced by compulsory feeding. We must therefore reject different varieties, which engender various mischiefs, such as a depraved habit of body and disorders of the stomach, the taste being vitiated by an unhappy art—that of cookery, and the useless art of making pastry. For people dare to call by the name of food their dabbling in luxuries, which glides into mischievous pleasures. Antiphanes, the Delian physician, said that this variety of viands was the one cause of disease; there being people who dislike the truth, and through various absurd notions abjure moderation of diet, and put themselves to a world of trouble to procure dainties from beyond seas." - Clement of Alexandria, originally Titus Flavius Clemens NULL
"But heartfelt thanksgiving should have first place in our book of prayer. Next should be confession and genuine contrition of soul. And after that should come our request to the universal King. This method of prayer is best, as one of the brothers was told by an angel of the Lord." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"There are many ways of piety and perdition. That is why it often happens that a way that is unsuitable for one just fits another; and the intention of both is acceptable to the Lord." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites
"There is nothing to do but be." - Stephen Levine
"That balancing moment at which pleasure would allure, and conscience is urging us to refrain, may be regarded as the point of departure or divergency whence one or other of the two processes (towards evil, or towards good) take their commencement. Each of them consists in a particular succession of ideas, with their attendant feelings; and whichever of them may happen to be described once has, by the law of suggestion, the greater chance, in the same circumstances, of being described over again. Should the mind dwell on an object of allurement, and the considerations of principle not be entertained, it will pass inward from the first incitement to the final and guilty indulgence by a series of stepping-stones, each of which will present itself more readily in future, and with less chance of arrest or interruption by the suggestions of conscience than before." - Thomas Chalmers
"Men condemne the same things in others, which they approve in themselves; on the other side, they publickly commend what they privately condemne; and they deliver their Opinions more by Hear-say, than any Speculation of their own; and they accord more through hatred of some object, through fear, hope, love, or some other perturbation of mind, than true Reason. And therefore it comes to passe, that whole Bodyes of people often doe those things by Generall accord, or Contention, which those Writers most willingly acknowledge to be against the Law of Nature." - Thomas Hobbes
"I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some ... that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union.... The larger our association the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family?" - Thomas Jefferson
"This theme calls me in sleep night after night, and ev’ry morn Awakes me at sunrise; then I see the Saviour over me Spreading His beams of love, and dictating the words of this mild song: ‘Awake! Awake! O sleeper of the Land of Shadows, wake! expand! I am in you, and you in Me, mutual in Love Divine; Fibres of love from man to man thro’ Albion’s pleasant land.’" - William Blake
"I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door; So I turn’d to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore; And I saw it was fillèd with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be; And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires." - William Blake
"Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master." - Walter Rauschenbusch
"I prayed like a man walking in a forest at night, feeling his way with his hands, at each step fearing to fall into pure bottomlessness forever. Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart." - Wendell Berry
"We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare — warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself." - Wendell Berry
"There appear to be no integrating forces, no unified meaning, no true inner understanding of phenomena in our experience of the world. Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. In short, we live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain." - Václav Havel
"Dear me, how I love a library." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"I know this simple fact to be true, for I myself have abandoned people who did not want me to go, and I myself have been abandoned by those whom I begged to stay." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"What time has ever been a simple time for those who are living it?" - Elizabeth Gilbert
"We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?" - Ellen Goodman
"Getting up in the middle of the night, I walked around my room with the certainty of being chosen and criminal, a double privilege natural to the sleepless, revolting or incomprehensible for the captives of daytime logic." - Emil M. Cioran
"Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
"The Key Of Destiny - There are a few great laws that govern all thinking, just as there are a few fundamental laws in chemistry, in physics, and in mechanics, for example. We know that thought control is the Key of Destiny, and in order to learn thought control we have to know and understand these laws, just as the chemist has to understand the laws of chemistry, and the electrician has to know the laws of electricity. One of the great mental laws is the Law of Substitution. This means that the only way to get rid of a certain thought is to substitute another one for it. You cannot dismiss a thought directly. You can do so only by substituting another one for it. On the physical plane this is not the case. You can drop a book or a stone by simply opening your hand and letting it go; but with thought this will not work. If you want to dismiss a negative thought, the only way to do so is to think of something positive and constructive. It is as though in order, let us say, to drop a pencil, it were necessary to put a pen or a book or a stone into your hand, when the pencil would fall away. If I say to you, "Do not think ofthe Statue of Liberty," of course, you immediately think of it. If you say, "I am not going to think of the Statue of Liberty," that is thinking of it. But now, having thought of it, if you become interested in something else, say, by turning on the radio, you forget all about the Statue of Liberty - and this is a case of substitution. It sometimes happens that negative thoughts seem to besiege you in such force that you cannot overcome them. That is what is called a fit of depression, or a fit of worry, or perhaps even a fit of anger. In such a case the best thing is to go and find someone to talk to on any subject, or to go to a good movie or play, or read an interesting book, say a good novel or biography or travel book, or something of the kind. If you sit down to fight the negative tide you will probably succeed only in amplifying it. Turn your attention to something quite different, refusing steadfastly to think of or rehearse the difficulty, and, later on, after you have completely gotten away from it, you can come back with confidence and handle it by spiritual treatment." - Emmet Fox
"It's better to give than to receive." - English Proverbs
"Given our accustomed ways of surrounding the important events with attention-getting publicity and given the importance of this event thatÂ’s a big surprise. Bright lights and amplification are not accessories to spiritual formation." - Eugene Peterson
"In my relations with my father, which are difficult and where I'm often met by coolness and indifference, I am constantly tempted to be cold and indifferent. Yet I know that this is a test if I could take it rightly." - Evelyn Underhill