This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.
The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
The evil that is in this world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, fully Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
The common character of all evil is that its realization in fact involves that there is some concurrent realization of a purpose towards elimination. The purpose is to secure the avoidance of evil. The fact of the instability of evil is the moral order in the world.
Character | Evil | Instability | Order | Purpose | Purpose | World |
Evil is the brute motive force of fragmentary purpose, disregarding the eternal vision. Evil is overruling, retarding, hurting. The power of God is the worship He inspires. The worship of God is not a rule of safety – it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.
Adventure | Death | Eternal | Evil | Force | God | Hope | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Religion | Rule | Spirit | Vision | Worship | God |