This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"You are the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency, your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end, and remain purely as a means." - Dag Hammarskjöld
"Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated." - Dag Hammarskjöld
"Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a ledge that gives them to claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"A beneficent person is like a fountain watering the earth, and spreading fertility; it is, therefore, more delightful and more honorable to give than to receive." - Epicurus NULL
"Modesty is a shining light; it prepares the mind to receive knowledge, and the heart for truth." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
"Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even some who insist on it) are like usurers who gladly risk their capital if only they receive interest." - Franz Kafka
"There never was a person who do anything worth doing that did not receive more than he gave." - Henry Ward Beecher
"There never was a person who did anything worth doing that did not receive more than he gave." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it. As long as there is the enthusiasm of the chase they enjoy it. But when they begin to look around and think of settling down, they find that that part by which joy enters in, is dead in them. They have spent their lives in heaping up colossal piles of treasure, which stand at the end, like the pyramids in the desert, holding only the dust of things." - Henry Ward Beecher
"When flowers are full of heaven descended dews, they always hang their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more they receive, getting proud as they get full." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Lay silently the injuries you receive upon the altar of oblivion." - Hosea Ballou
"There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every conquest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her; and zealously to labor after her ways is to receive them." - James Bryant Conant
"Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her, and zealously to labor after her wages is to receive them." - James Bryant Conant
"Praise in the beginning is agreeable enough; and we receive it as a favor; but when it comes in great quantities, we regard it only as a debt, which nothing but our merit could extort." - James Goldsmith
"As you think, you travel; and as you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You cannot escape the result of your thoughts, but you can endure and learn, can accept and be glad... Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less." -
"Four things are required to develop generosity of spirit: (1) The intention to serve God in all our affairs. (2) The belief that if that intention is honored, the Universe will provide all that is required materially and spiritually for our success. (3) The understanding that we receive as we give, and that our own creativity is enhanced through mentoring others. (4) Practical groundedness. God can’t deliver the lottery jackpot unless we buy a ticket!" - Joan Borysenko
"The true happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions; it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows; in short, it feels everything it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive satisfaction from the applauses which she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theaters and assemblies, and has no existence but when she is looked upon." - Joseph Addison
"Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life." - Joseph Addison
"To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny." - Joseph Addison
"Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive. When you meet Beauty, you feel that the hands deep within your inner self are stretched forth to bring her into the domain of your heart. It is a magnificence combined of sorrow and joy; it is the Unseen which you see, and the Vague which you understand, and the Mute which you hear - it is the Holy of Holies that begins in yourself and ends vastly beyond your earthly imagination." - Kahlil Gibran
"Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it." - Karl Menninger, fully Karl Augustus Menninger
"A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones." - Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
"We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by evil or commonplace that prevailed round them. They represent a struggle and a victory." - Marcel Proust, fully Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust
"It is better to receive than to do an injury." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"It is my humility that gives God his divinity and the proof of it is this. God’s peculiar property is giving. But God cannot give if he has nothing to receive his gifts. Since I make myself receptive to his gifts by my humility so I by my humility do make God giver and since giving is God’s own peculiar property I do by my humility give God his property." - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
"The secret of happiness… be satisfied… be grateful. For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
"The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its head meekly while the world slips the collar over it." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt." - Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
"As soft wax is apt to take the stamp of the seal, so are the minds of young children to receive the instruction imprinted on them." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"To receive a proper education is the source and root of all goodness." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness." - Robert Muller
"Grace is necessary to salvation, free will is equally so; but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"Our free will can hinder the course of inspiration, and when the favourable gale of god’s grace swells the sails of our soul, it is in our power to refuse consent and thereby hinder the effect of the wind’s favour; but when our spirit sails along and makes it voyage prosperously, it is not we who make the gale of inspiration blow for us, nor we who make our sails swell with it, nor we who give motion to the ship of our heart; but we simply receive the gale, consent to its motion and let our ship sail under it, not hindering it by; our resistance." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL
"We can think of the soul not as an entity but as a principle. We can conceive of the soul as not entering into a body already in existence and ready to receive the soul, but as creating a body for its own habitation. Instead of form or structure determining function, we can take function as determining form. In this case, the soul comes first and the body is constructed by it." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred... let me sow love. Where there is injury... pardon. Where there is doubt... faith. Where there is despair... hope. Where there is darkness... light. Where there is sadness... joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled... as to console, to be understood... as to understand; to be loved... as to love, for it is in giving... that we receive. It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned, it is in dying... that we are born to eternal life." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"It is in giving that we receive." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
"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
"Advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive. " - Carolyn Wells
"If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive." - Dorothee Söelle
"It is stated in the sacred Zohar that "When the tzaddik departs he is to be found in all worlds more than in his lifetime." Now this needs to be understood. For, granted that he is to be found increasingly in the supernal worlds, because he ascends to there; but how can he be found more in this world? ... This can be explained based on [the maxim] that the life of a tzaddik is not a physical life but a spiritual life, consisting wholly of faith, awe, and love of G‑d... While the tzaddik was alive on earth, these three qualities were contained in their physical vessel and garment (i.e. the body) on the plane of physical space... All his disciples receive but a reflection of these attributes, a ray radiating beyond this vessel by means of his holy utterances and thoughts... But after his passing... whoever is close to him can receive a [far loftier dimension] of these three qualities, since they are no longer confined within a [material] vessel, nor bounded by physical space... Thus it is very easy for his disciples to receive their part of their master's quintessential spirit, each according to the level of his loving attachment (hitkashrut) and closeness to the tzaddik during his lifetime and after his death." - Shneur Zalman of Liadi
"To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught. The relation with the Other, or Conversation, is a non-allergic relation, an ethical relation; but inasmuch as it is welcomed this conversation is a teaching. Teaching is not reducible to maieutics; it comes from the exterior and brings me more than I contain. In its non-violent transitivity the very epiphany of the face is produced." - Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas
"The common interests of states and individuals alike demand that good and evil receive their just rewards." - Euripedes NULL
"The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind. " - Frances Wright, known as Fanny Wright
"There is no truer cause of unhappiness amongst men than, where naturally expecting charity and benevolence, they receive harm and vexation. " - François Rabelais