This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"When thinking of sinners we shall never go wrong to include ourselves." - Aelred Graham
"Where religion goes wrong it is because, in one form or another, men have made the mistake of trying to turn to God without turning away from self." - Aelred Graham
"There is nothing wrong with questioning the teachings of one’s religion. It is an act of spiritual maturity, not of disobedience or disrespect. Religions may have been inspired by God, but they have evolved as human institutions. So, they are not infallible." - Tom Gregory
"Never believe anyone who says `Nothing will go wrong.’" - Allan J Hamilton
"It is often much more difficult to learn from victory than from defeat. In defeat, questions are asked abut what went wrong, so that those mistakes will not be made in the future. But victory seldom creates the need to inquire as to its sources." - Gary Hart, born Gary Warren Hartpence
"Basic axiomatic positionalities of the ego: (1) Phenomena are either good or bad, right or wrong, just or unjust, fair or unfair. (2) The `bad’ deserve to be punished and the `good’ rewarded. (3) Things happen by accident or else they are the fault of somebody else. (4) the mind is capable of comprehending and recognizing truth from falsehood. (5) The word causes and determines one’s experiences. (6) Life is unfair because the innocent suffer while the wicked go unpunished. (7) People can be different than they are. (8) It is critical and necessary to be right. (9) It is critical and necessary to win. (10) Wrongs must be righted. (11) Righteousness must prevail. (12) Perceptions represent reality." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
"In humans, social conditioning establishes acceptable versus unacceptable behaviors and belief systems. Pejorative denunciations and condemnations are institutionalized, and judgmentalism is supported and encouraged. Behaviors are identified with morality and ethics and simply classified as good versus bad or right versus wrong." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
"Dazzled by the brilliant achievements of the intellect in science and technique, we have been deluded into believing that we are the masters of the earth and our will the ultimate criterion of what is right and wrong." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"The conscience is… a brake, not a guide; a fence, not a way. It raises its voice after a wrong deed has been committed, but often fails to give us direction in advance of our actions." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"The price we pay for liberty is that so far as a man is free to do right he is also free to do wrong." - L. T. Hobhouse, fully Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
"Life is like a tapestry that we view from the wrong side. We see all the strands and knots, and it makes no sense from the back. But there is a different view of the whole things to which we are assured some day we will be privy. In the meanwhile, there are all these knots we have to deal with existentially; the path has been charted – compassion and justice – imbued by vision. And it’s up to the individual." - Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
"Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct." - Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley
"The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil." - William James
"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - Thomas Jefferson
"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"I believe that man was created to enjoy himself, indeed, that he can claim it as his legitimate right. In fact, as long as he lives, man cannot help enjoying himself, even if he tries not… Today the average person, when he hears the word pleasure, immediately thinks of something immoral. But nothing could be more wrong." - Kafū Nagai, pen name for Nagai Sōkichi
"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
"I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away." - Barbara Kingsolver
"The real tragedy of our prayers is not that God so often refuses to grant them. The tragedy is we so often ask for the wrong thing." - Ronald Knox, fully Ronald Arbuthnott Knox
"In this world the optimists have it, not because they are always right, but because they are positive. Even when they are wrong, they are positive, and they is the way of achievement, correction, improvement and success." - David Landes, fully David Saul Landes
"The will of God prevails. In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same things at the same time." - Abraham Lincoln
"The average man who goes wrong in belief does it when he forgets that there are other truths besides his favorite one." - Cleland Boyd McAfee
"Acceptance of death is acceptance of freedom – freedom to live each day with clarity and courage… If we know we are going to die, all danger disappears. There is less fear about what can go wrong, because the worst that can possibly go wrong – our own death – is completely assured. All there is left to do is live, and live well." - Wayne Muller
"Our life is not a problem to be solved, it is a gift to be opened… If we are preoccupied with what is missing and what is broken and wrong, we lose the miraculous harvest of all these tiny gifts, piled on upon the other, that accumulate without our acknowledging them. If we listen more carefully for the infinite blessings of a single day, this will not discount or obliterate our sorrows. But it will help us remember how strong and rich we can be, even in the midst of suffering." - Wayne Muller
"Human morality is composed of four interconnecting principles: a genetic predisposition toward survival, the neural development of the brain, a social imperative toward group cohesion, and a cognitive propensity to make distinctions between right and wrong and good and evil. Our moral continuum appears to be strongly influenced by the degrees of connectedness we feel with others; the more connected we feel, the more we act with generosity, compassion and fairness." - Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman
"Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction." - Kenichi Ohmae
"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right, and when he sees it is not, the prejudice will be gone." - Thomas Paine
"When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government." - Thomas Paine
"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things." - Paul the Apostle, aka Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, originally Saul NULL
"Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god." - Eugene Peterson
"A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday." - Alexander Pope
"Right and wrong are the same for all in the same circumstances." - Richard Price
"We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate." - George William Russell
"What treaty that the white man ever made with us have they kept? Not one. When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian. What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has come to me hungry and unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my people and my country?" - Sitting Bull, aka Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, born Hoka Psice NULL
"All who allow themselves a wrong liberty make themselves their own aim and object." - Henry Suso
"Sometimes things can go right only by first going very wrong." - Edward Tenner
"What is Christian perfection? The loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. This implies that no wrong temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words, and actions are governed by pure love." - John Wesley
"The willingness to take the risk of being wrong and perhaps subjected to ridicule, punishment, or loss is an outstanding trait of the creative person. Such action does not mean to behave on foolish impulse, but to calculate the risks and then to take a chance." - Frank Barron
"The reality of life is that your perceptions -- right or wrong -- influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place." - Roger Birkman
"Doing the right thing, for the right reasons, is the right way to live a successful life. Doing the wrong thing, for the wrong reasons, is the wrong way to go about the business of life." - Gary Ryan Blair
"One of the mistakes many of us make is that we feel sorry for ourselves, or for others, thinking that life should be fair, or that someday it will be. It's not and it won't. When we make this mistake we tend to spend a lot of time wallowing and/or complaining about what's wrong with life. 'It's not fair,' we complain, not realizing that, perhaps, it was never intended to be." - Richard Carlson
"Mourn not the dead. But rather mourn the apathetic throng - the cowed and meek who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak." - Ralph Chaplin, fully Ralph Hosea Chaplin