This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." - Thomas Paine
"The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters." - Thomas Paine
"If you have faced pain and disappointment, you not only value your happiness more highly, but you are prepared for unpredictable exigencies." - W. Béran Wolfe
"Since the examinations became influential, this world no longer knows there are books... The millions of people over the hundreds of years are lured only to how to copy each other, and to figure out what the examination content could be like. These people are empty shells and rotten leather. They are no talents at all. " - Wang Fuzhi or Fu-chih or Fuchih, pseudonym Chuanshan, courtesy name Ernong
"isit every member twice a year: One fellow minister commented that this would be possible with a 200 member congregation, but would become harder with a larger congregation. I remember reading that for every 175-225 members there should be a minister — something some churches exceed while others fall short. Nevertheless, the point is to have an acquaintance with one’s congregation. A personal visit may be perceived as a “clerical duty” in today’s world, but another minister suggested having members over to your home (e.g., preacher, elder, deacon) for a meal to meet these ends." - Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
"The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world can be the true worship of God. Work and worship literally become one. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever; and man carries out that function when he does what God sent him into the world to do. Work well done rises like a hymn of praise to God. This means that the doctor on his rounds, the scientist in his laboratory, the teacher in his classroom, the musician at his music, the artist at his canvas, the shop assistant at his counter, the typist at her typewriter, the housewife in her kitchen -- all who are doing the work of the world as it should be done are joining in a great act of worship." - William Barclay
"I believe that we have been complacent as a society. We have failed to fully comprehend the gathering storm. Even now after September 11, it is far from clear that our society truly appreciates the gravity of the threat we face or is yet willing to do what is necessary to counter it. Even after September 11, and after anthrax and ricin attacks in the U.S., I remain concerned that the controversy over not finding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction will lead to the erroneous assumption that all the talk about the dangers of WMD is just another exercise in the cynical exploitation of fear. After all, it is commonly noted, there have been no attacks since 9/11. This is a dangerous delusion. The enemy is not only coming, he has been here. He is already amongst us. He will continue to try to examine our weaknesses, exploit the crevices in our security, and destroy our way of living as well as our lives." - William Cohen, fully William Sebastian Cohen
"To the extent that this bombing interrupted the training activities of a terrorist network, they may be more safe." - William Cohen, fully William Sebastian Cohen
"His mind his kingdom, and his will his law." - William Cowper
"The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting-points, and by unconnected roads." - Walter Pater, fully Walter Horatio Pater
"O Master, let me walk with Thee in lowly paths of service free; tell me Thy secret; help me bear the strain of toil, the fret of care." - Washington Gladden
"Teach me thy patience; still with thee in closer, dearer company, in work that keeps faith sweet and strong, in trust that triumphs over wrong." - Washington Gladden
"If you want to know what your thoughts were like yesterday, look at your body today. If you want to know what your body will be like tomorrow, look at your thoughts today." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys, who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world. The practice of non-meditation is ceasing to be the see-er, hearer or speaker while eyes, ears and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life." - Wei Wu Wei, pen name for Terence James Stannus Gray
"A Human relationship can begin when the projection collapses." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"Snakes and spiders symbolize the underworld Feminine, a symbol of the sensate world and the physical body. They are associated with the mystery of the creation of the world. This is viewed negatively in the West, yet if one has only known the Divine Mother in its beautific state, its caring, nurturing aspect, at some point you are going to have to encounter its wrathful side, that devours, that enmeshes and consumes, and to honor those forces. Every great thing is birthed out of its counterpart. When you are going through a descent mystery, there is a difference between being dragged into it, and consciously going through the descent. When you are going through a descent, you need to remember you have to submit to its forces, not yours, and unless you are willing to submit to it, which means even dismemberment and death in the process, don’t bother." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning." - W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming
"The various segments of the system of profound knowledge proposed here cannot be separated. They interact with each other. Thus, knowledge of psychology is incomplete without knowledge of variation." - W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming
"I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"There is much unexplored potential in each human being. We are not just flesh and bone or an amalgamation of conditionings. If this were so, our future on this planet would not be very bright. But there is infinitely more to life, and each passionate being who dares to explore beyond the fragmentary and superficial into the mystery of totality helps all humanity perceive what it is to be fully human. Revolution, total revolution, implies experimenting with the impossible. And when an individual takes a step in the direction of the new, the impossible, the whole human race travels through that individual." - Vimala Thakar
"We have accepted the watertight compartments of society, the fragmentation of living as factual and necessary. We live in relationship to these fragments and accept the internalized divisions—the various roles we play, the contradictory value systems, the opposing motives and priorities—as reality. We are at odds with ourselves internally; we believe that the inner is fundamentally different from the outer, that what is me is quite separate from the not-me, that divisions among people and nations are necessary, and yet we wonder why there are tensions, conflicts, wars in the world. The conflicts begin with minds that believe in fragmentation and are ignorant of wholeness." - Vimala Thakar
"Some good must come by clinging to the right. Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
"To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do." - Victor Hugo
"If a householder molds himself according to the circumstances just like nature molds Herself according to seasons and performs his Karma then only shall he acquire happiness. One who does this successfully gains in all walks of life." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"Only by indulging in good deeds can one expect good results." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda
"The Divine is a wine that would intoxicate you. The nectar that the Name of the Lord is saturated in produces it. Taste it and you forget everything else; you are transformed." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"The upper part of the womb do I place below, there shall come to thee neither offspring nor birth. I render thee sterile and devoid of offspring; a stone do I make into a cover for thee." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"There are no right answers to wrong questions." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"Men crowd into honorable careers without other vocation than their vanity, or at best their love of fame." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
"Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity." - Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL
"The accumulation of good work is joyful." - Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL
"The mortality of mankind is but a part of the process of living - a step on the way to immortality. - Dying, to the good man, is but a brief sleep, from which he wakes to a perfection and fullness of life in eternity." - Tryon Edwards
"No one has expressed what is needed better than Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the London-based al-Arabiya news channel. One of the best-known and most respected Arab journalists working today, he wrote the following, in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (September 6, 2004), after a series of violent incidents involving Muslim extremist groups from Chechnya to Saudi Arabia to Iraq: Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture... The mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life. Then came the neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry... We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women. We cannot redeem our extremist youth, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
"I am the friend of peace and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able. . . . No course of my choosing or of their (nations at war) will lead to war. War can come only by the willful acts and aggressions of others." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Once lead this people into war and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken" - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack." - Thucydides NULL
"Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; as hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are 'clept all by the name of dogs: the valued file distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, the housekeeper, the hunter, every one according to the gift which bounteous nature hath in him closed. Macbeth, Act iii, Scene 1" - William Shakespeare
"The average newspaper boy in Pittsburgh knows more about the universe than did Galileo, Aristotle, Leonardo, or any of those other guys who were so smart they only needed one name." - Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
"For the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos." - William James
"Man's perfection would be the fulfillment of his end; and his end would be union with his Maker." - William James
"Let a clergyman but intend to please God in all his actions, as the happiest and best thing in the world, and then he will know that there is nothing noble in a clergyman but a burning zeal for the salvation of souls; nor anything poorer in his profession [than] idleness and a worldly spirit." - William Law
"No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress." - William Law
"Our hearts deceive us, because we leave them to themselves, are absent from them, taken up in outward rules and forms of living and praying. But this kind of praying, which takes all its thoughts and words only from the state of our hearts, makes it impossible for us to be strangers to ourselves. The strength of every sin, the power of every evil temper, the most secret workings of our hearts, the weakness of any or all our virtues, is with a noonday clearness forced to be seen, as soon as the heart is made our prayer book, and we pray nothing, but according to what we read, and find there." - William Law
"O Great Corrector of enormous times, of dustie, and old tytles, that healst with blood the earth when it is sicke, and curst the world o'th pluresie of people;" - William Shakespeare
"O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, and careful hours with Time's deformed hand have written strange defeatures in my face. But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?" - William Shakespeare
"Ouch! In your eyes there is a greater danger than in twenty daggers of your relatives. Look at me sweetly, and is enough to make me invulnerable to hate them." - William Shakespeare
"ROSENCRANTZ: I understand you not, my lord. HAMLET: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. ROSENCRANTZ: My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. HAMLET: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing — GUILDENSTERN: A thing, my lord? HAMLET: Of nothing." -
"And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot yet do today?" - Elizabeth Gilbert