This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"In the end, as any successful teacher will tell you, you can only teach the things that you are. If we practice racism then it is racism that we teach." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
"Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without it we can't practice any other virtue with consistency." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
"More democratic societies, including the United States, instituted measures to impose discipline on the domestic population and to institute unpopular measures under the guise of "combating terror," exploiting the atmosphere of fear and the demand for "patriotism" - which in practice means: "You shut up and I'll pursue my own agenda relentlessly." The Bush administration used the opportunity to advance its assault against most of the population, and future generations, in service to the narrow corporate interests that dominate the administration to an extent even beyond the norm." - Noam Chomsky, fully Avram Noam Chomsky
"To practice the basic principles of good health, visualize yourself as sound, healthy and filled with vitality and boundless life of your Creator. Look upon yourself as the unique individual that you are. Get in harmony with the creative, life-giving, health-maintaining forces of the universe. Affirm peace, wholeness, and good health - and they will be yours." - Norman Vincent Peale
"“Every morning of the world I give thanks for all the wonderful things in my life,” declared a young man enthusiastically. “And do you know something? It’s strange indeed, but the more I give thanks, the more I have reason to be thankful. For, you see, blessings just pile up on me one after another like nobody’s business”... The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for... The attitude of gratitude revitalizes the entire mental process by activating all other attitudes, thus stimulating creativity... Remember that praise and thanksgiving are the most powerful prayers of all." - Norman Vincent Peale
"When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of putting it into practice." - Otto von Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg
"Where old men have no shame, there young men will most certainly be devoid of reverence. The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be always carrying out your own admonitions in practice." - Plato NULL
"Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"Religious life is not threatened merely by vexing restrictions. It can also be threatened by the spread of false values - such as hedonism, power-seeking, greed - which are making headway in various countries and which in practice stifle the spiritual aspirations of large numbers of people." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL
"We need in love to practice only this: letting each other go, for holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"The astonishment of life is the absence of any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Most learning consists of extended plateau periods in which we solidify progress through repetitive activity, followed by little spurts of improvement... With repeated practice, we give up our restless search for happiness in the next moment and learn that by inhabiting each moment with full awareness, we experience a deepening sensory aliveness and richness." - Ronald S. Miller
"Perhaps more than any other single factor, the intimate alchemy between the healer and the patient helps mobilize the body's natural resources. The mere presence of a healer often evokes hope in the patient and an expectation of recovery. When the two people create a partnership based on compassion, trust, and shared decision-making, and when the relationship nurtures the patient's hope for a positive outcome, even seemingly incurable diseases sometimes go into remission.... insistently restoring the human heart to the practice of medicine. Rather than treating patients as disease processes, they risk bringing their full humanness to the therapeutic encounter. They not only call on their technological expertise, but on the inner qualities practiced by healers from time immemorial: patience, humility, compassion, and an ability to inspire and mobilize their patients' healing resources." - Ronald S. Miller
"The exhortation of the wise, unaccompanied by practice, falls on the heart as rain on stone; and he whose words are at variance with his deeds disgraces himself; hence, words which come not from the heart can never penetrate the ear." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them." - Socrates NULL
"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them." - Socrates NULL
"Obey the nature of things and you will walk freely and undisturbed. When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear. The burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?" - Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
"Only when his heart becomes purified through the practice of spiritual disciplines does man attain to wisdom. He then becomes convinced of the existence of God through realizing Him in his own soul. There is, however, something greater than this attainment. To become convinced that fire hides hidden in the wood is one thing, but greater is it to light the fire, cook food, and satisfy one’s hunger." -
"Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times." - Thich Nhất Hanh
"All men command patience, although few be willing to practice it." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"There are many persons who desire the contemplative life, but they will not practice the things which lead to it." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge." - Thomas Arnold
"The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, with free force to do: the grand schoolmaster is Practice." - Thomas Carlyle
"Habit and imitation - there is nothing more perennial in us than these two. They are the source of all working, and all apprenticeship, of all practice, and all learning, in this world." - Thomas Carlyle
"Knowledge, without Practice, makes but half an Artist." - Thomas Fuller
"The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good, are the two most important aims of philosophy." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"People today distinguish between knowledge and action and purse them separately, believing that one must know before he can act… They say [they will wait] till they truly know before putting their knowledge into practice. Consequently, to the end of their lives, they will never act and also will never know." - Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an
"Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts." - William Hazlitt
"We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach. " - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The important point of spiritual practice is not to try to escape your life, but to face it - exactly and completely" - Dainin Katagiri, fully Jikai Dainin Katagiri, aka Hojo-san Katagiri
"Thought is a strenuous art -- few practice it, and then only at rare times." - David Ben-Gurion, born David Grün
"Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as a result of compulsion." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"One social structure will be conducive to cooperation and solidarity another social structure to competition, suspiciousness, avarice; another to child-like receptiveness, another to destructive aggressiveness. All empirical forms or human needs and drives have to be understood as results of the social practice (in the last analysis based on the productive forces, class structure, etc., etc.) but they all have to fulfill the functions which are inherent in man’s nature in general, and that is to permit him to relate himself to others and share a common frame of reference, etc. The existential contradiction within man (to which I would now add also the contradiction between limitations which reality imposes on his life, and the virtually limitless imagination which his brain permits him to follow) is what I believe to be one of the motives of psychological and social dynamics. Man can never stand still. He must find solutions to this contradiction, and ever better solutions to the extent to which reality enables him. The question then arises whether there is an optimal solution which can be inferred from man’s nature, and which constitutes a potential tendency in man. I believe that such optimal solutions can be inferred from the nature of man, and I have recently found it quite useful to think in terms of what in sociology and economy is now often called »system analysis«. One might start with the idea, in the first place, that human personality — just like society — is a system, that is to say, that each part depends on every other, and no part can be changed unless all or most other parts are also changed. A system is better than chaos. If a society system disintegrates or is destroyed by blows from the outside the society ends in chaos, and a completely new society is built upon its ruins, often using the elements of the destroyed system to build the new. That has happened many times in history. But, what also happens is that the society is not simply destroyed but that the system is changed, and a new system emerges which can be considered to be a transformation of the old one." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"Teach and practice, practice and teach - that is all we have; that is all we are good for; that is all we ever ought to do. " - Ernest Shurtleff Holmes
"Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God." - Fritjhof Schuon
"If human nature never changes, why is it that we not only don’t practice cannibalism any more, but don’t even want to? " - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"The best practice entices us with its endless possibilities. It's like a journey in which as we advance one mile toward the destination, it recedes two miles toward the horizon. We're not discouraged by this, but in fact exhilarated, because a practice having infinite possibilities opens us to a life of constant learning. Every attainment serves as a platform for new and unceasing explorations in consciousness." - George Leonard, fully George Burr Leonard
"Don't do anything in practice that you wouldn't do in the game. " - George Halas, fully George Stanley Halas, Sr., nicknamed "Papa Bear" and "Mr. Everything"
"Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions." - Gerald G. Jampolsky
"The law does not fawn on the noble; the string does not yield to the crooked. Whatever the law applies to, the wise cannot reject nor can the brave defy. Punishment for fault never skips ministers, reward for good never misses commoners. Therefore, to correct the faults of the high, to rebuke the vices of the low, to suppress disorders, to decide against mistakes, to subdue the arrogant, to straighten the crooked, and to unify the folkways of the masses, nothing could match the law. To warn the officials and overawe the people, to rebuke obscenity and danger, and to forbid falsehood and deceit, nothing could match penalty. If penalty is severe, the noble cannot discriminate against the humble. If law is definite, the superiors are esteemed and not violated. If the superiors are not violated, the sovereign will become strong and able to maintain the proper course of government. Such was the reason why the early kings esteemed legalism and handed it down to posterity. Should the lord of men discard law and practice selfishness, high and low would have no distinction. Hence to govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong." - Han Fei, also Han Fei Zi, Han Feitzu and Han Fei Tzu
"One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless. They have put into practice the notion that a bad art work cleverly interpreted according to some obscure Method is more rewarding than a masterpiece wrapped in silence." - Harold Rosenberg
"The food of the soul is silence. If we don't practice silence, we are starving ourselves." - Dada Vaswani, born Jashan Pahalraj Vaswani
"Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press. It has accordingly been decided, by the practice of the states, that it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth, than, by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits. And can the wisdom of this policy be doubted by any one who reflects that to the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression?" - James Madison
"Church is a place where you get to practice what it means to be human." - James Luther Adams