This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Al-Anṭākī , full name Yaḥya ibn Saʿīd al-Anṭākī NULL
Question: What is the most harmful sin? Answer: The sin thou dost not know to be a sin.
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
Man’s greatest duty is to love God: that is the first commandment. The second is to love his neighbor. And it is possible for two creatures to love one another only because God exists and is their common Father – it is the divine image and likeness that is loveable in our fellow-men.
Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
Always in everything let there be reverence; with the deportment grave as when one is thinking (deeply), and with speech composed and definite. This will make the people tranquil. Pride should not be allowed to grow; the desires should not be indulged; the will should not be gratified to the full; pleasure should not be carried to excess.
Excess | Grave | People | Pleasure | Pride | Reverence | Speech | Thinking | Will |
Joan Chittister, fully Sister Joan D. Chittister
Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.
Abuse | Children | Commitment | Conscience | God | Individual | Law | Morality | Obedience | Sin | Soul |
Herbert Butterfield, fully Sir Herbert Butterfield
In the kind of world that I see in history there is one sin that locks people up in all their other sins… the sin of self-righteousness.
History | People | Righteousness | Self | Self-righteousness | Sin | World |
Compassion is the root of religion; pride the root of sin.
Compassion | Pride | Religion | Sin |
Both sin and sickness are error, and Truth is their remedy.
We are at ease with a moral judgment made against someone’s private sin - lust or greed. We are much less comfortable judging someone’s public ethic - those decisions that can lead to such outcomes as aggression, the abuse of the environment, the neglect of the needy.
Abuse | Aggression | Greed | Judgment | Lust | Neglect | Public | Sin |