This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
To pretend to devotion without great humility and renunciation of all worldly tempers is to pretend to impossibilities. He that would be devout must first be humble, have a full sense of his own miseries and wants and the vanity of the world, and then his soul will be full of desire after God. A proud, or vain, or worldly-minded man may use a manual of prayers, but he cannot be devout, because devotion is the application of an humble heart to God as its only happiness.
Desire | Devotion | God | Heart | Humility | Man | Sense | Soul | Wants | Will | World | God |
"Psychological modernism," an uncritical acceptance of the values of the modern world. It includes blind faith in technology, inordinate attachment to material gadgets and conveniences, uncritical acceptance of the march of scientific progress, devotion to the electronic media, and a life-style dictated by advertising. This orientation toward life also tends toward a mechanistic and rationalistic understanding of matters of the heart.
Acceptance | Advertising | Devotion | Faith | Heart | Life | Life | Progress | Style | Technology | Understanding | World |
Love... is mutuality of devotion forever subduing the antagonisms inherent in divided functions.
Devotion |
Frank Lloyd Wright, born Frank Lincoln Wright
I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.
George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled “good” or “bad.” But secondly… I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism… By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
Desire | Devotion | Duty | Evil | Force | Good | Habit | Nature | Patriotism | People | Power | Purpose | Purpose | World |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.
Granted that ritual in any realm from courtesy to worship can become formal, empty, and stiff. Nevertheless, with all its dangers it is an absolute necessity. We cannot… train children in the spirit of religion if the appropriate activities of worship and devotion are forgotten.
Absolute | Children | Courtesy | Devotion | Religion | Spirit | Worship |
James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin
A devotion to humanity... is too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty... Freedom is not something anybody can be given, freedom is something people take.
John Dickinson, pen name Fabius
There is no treasure but Truth, there is no Truth but Wisdom. There is no Wisdom, but from Learning, and Learning is won by the devotion of hours, years, days and nights to the works of Nature and the Treasures of Truth that others have gathered.
John Rawls, fully John Bordley Rawls
One who lacks a sense of justice lacks certain fundamental attitudes and capacities included under the notion of humanity. Now the moral feelings are admittedly unpleasant, in some extended sense of unpleasant; but there is no way for us to avoid a liability to them without disfiguring ourselves. This liability is the price of love and trust, of friendship and affection, and of devotion to institutions and traditions from which we have benefited and which serve the general interests of mankind…by understanding what it would be like not to have a sense of justice–that it would be to lack part of our humanity too–we are led to accept our having this sense.
Devotion | Feelings | Humanity | Justice | Love | Price | Sense | Understanding | Friendship |
No religious act is properly fulfilled unless it is done with a willing heart and a craving soul. You cannot worship Him with your body if you do not know how to worship Him with your soul. The relationship between deed and inner devotion must be understood in terms of polarity. Observance must not be reduced to external compliance with the law. Agreement of the heart with the spirit, not only with the letter of the law, is itself a requirement of the law. The goal is to live beyond the dictates of the law; to fulfill the eternal suddenly; to create goodness out of nothing, as it were... All observance is training in the art of love... Every act of man is an encounter of the human and the holy.
Art | Body | Compliance | Devotion | Eternal | Heart | Man | Relationship | Training | Worship | Art |
Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL
The greatest contentment comes from devotion alone and not from it's rewards, therefore one who has this devotion seeks nothing else.
Contentment | Devotion | Nothing |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Great devotion requires great sacrifice.
Devotion |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
A great many people do many things that seem to be inspired more by a spirit of ostentation than by heartfelt kindness… Such a pose is nearer akin to hypocrisy than to generosity or moral goodness.
Generosity | Hypocrisy | Ostentation | People | Spirit |
One of the grat tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practise the very antithesis of these principles. How often are our lives characterised by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anaemia of deeds! We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practise the very opposite of the democratic creed. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. This strange dichotomy, this agonising gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man's earthly pilgrimage.
Antithesis | Commitment | Devotion | Life | Life | Men | Practice | Principles | Time |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God. If we understand and feel that the greatest act of devotion and worship to God is not to harm any of His beings, we are loving God. To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.
Devotion | God | Happy | Harm | Love | Worship | God | Happiness | Understand |