This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Let us have faith that right makes right, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Duty | Faith | Right | Wisdom | Understand |
The institutions of a country depend in great measure on the nature of its soil and situation. Many of the wants of man are awakened or supplied by these circumstances. To these wants, manners, laws, and religion must shape and accommodate themselves. The division of land, and the rights attached to it, alter with the soil; the laws relating to its produce, with its fertility. The manners of its inhabitants are in various ways modified by its position. The religion of a miner is not the same as the faith of a shepherd, nor is the character of the ploughman so war-like as that of the hunter. The observant legislator follows the direction of all these various circumstances. the knowledge of the natural advantages or defects of a country thus form an essential part of political science and history.
Character | Circumstances | Defects | Faith | History | Knowledge | Land | Man | Manners | Nature | Position | Religion | Rights | Science | Wants | War | Wisdom |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a distinct conception of what poets of strong ages call inspiration? If not, I will describe it. If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one, one would hardly be able to set aside the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely medium of overwhelming forces. The concept of revelation , in the sense that something suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, with necessity, unfalteringly formed - I have never had any choice... Everything is in the highest degree involuntary but takes place as in a tempest of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity... The involuntary nature of image, of metaphor is the most remarkable thing of all; one no longer has any idea what is image, what metaphor, everything presents itself as the readiest, the truest, the simplest means of expression.
Choice | Divinity | Freedom | Inspiration | Means | Nature | Necessity | Power | Revelation | Sense | Superstition | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Thought |
The concepts of morality too are subject to fashion; and he who cannot incline to the ideas in vogue in his century, is misunderstood and decried by his contemporaries.
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man.
Age | Man | Persuasion | Wisdom | Work |
The light of genius is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life, amid glory and acclamation; but it burns very dimly and low when carried into “the valley of the shadow of death.” But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls the more brightly, the deeper is the night of death in which they sink.
Death | Faith | Genius | Glory | Life | Life | Light | Man | Wisdom |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The Christian faith is a sacrifice: a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit; at the same time, enslavement and self-mockery, self-mutilation.
Confidence | Faith | Freedom | Mockery | Pride | Sacrifice | Self | Self-confidence | Spirit | Time | Wisdom |
William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa
Old age brings us to know the value of the blessings which we have enjoyed, and it brings us also to a very thankful perception of those which yet remain. Is a man advanced in life? The ease of a single day, the rest of a single night, are gifts which may be subjects of gratitude to God.
Age | Blessings | Day | God | Gratitude | Life | Life | Man | Old age | Perception | Rest | Wisdom | Value |
Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL
A man's happiness requires a great deal more than any material thing. We all find it out sooner or later. If we live our lives thoughtlessly, we defeat our purpose; because our faith in God becomes shattered and there is no greater loss.
Defeat | Faith | God | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | God | Happiness |