This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs the will: 'liking' is a matter of sense and sensibility. Nevertheless, if we really love others it will not be too hard to like them also. If we wait for some people to become agreeable or attractive before we begin to love them, we will never begin. If we are content to give them a cold impersonal 'charity' that is merely a matter of obligation, we will not trouble to understand them or to sympathize with them at all. And in that case we will not really love them, because love implies an efficacious will not only to do good to others exteriorly but also to find some good in them to which we can respond.
Good | Love | People | Sense | Will | Trouble | Understand |
Douglas Meeks, also M. Douglas Meeks
The mystery of idolatry is that persons reflect what they possess. Idolatry is being possessed by a possession and thereby refusing God’s claim on oneself and shirking one’s responsibility toward others in the community.
God | Mystery | Responsibility |
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
Mary Lyon, fully Mary Mason Lyon
Nine-tenths of our suffering is caused by others not thinking so much of us as we think they ought.
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
Complacency is the enemy. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be “insatiable in learning” and towards others to be “tireless in teaching.”
Complacency | Enemy | Learning | Learn |
A sound belief is always accompanied by a sane skepticism. It is only by disbelieving in some things that we can ever believe in others things. Faith does not mean credulity.
Belief | Faith | Skepticism | Sound |
Mir Taqi Mir, real name was Muhammad Taqi
If you have yourself come to God, the others too are seeking Him; however different be the ways the destination is the same.
God |
Aubrey Menen, formally Salvator Aubrey Clarence Menen
There are no national virtues. We are alone, each one of us. If we are good, the virtues of others will not make us better. We cannot borrow morals.
To do unto all men as you would wish to have done unto you, and to reject for others what you would reject for yourself.
Men |
`Tis not without reason that [Man] seeks out and is willing to join in Society with others who are already united or have a mind to unite for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property. The great and chief end, therefore, of Men’s uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of Property.
Government | Man | Men | Mind | Property | Reason | Society | Society |
When one has too many answers, and when on ejoins a chorus of others chanting the same slogans, there is, it seems to me, a danger that one is trying to evade the loneliness of a conscience that realizes itself to be in an inescapably evil situation. We are under judgment.
Conscience | Danger | Evil | Judgment | Loneliness | Danger |
Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
People who are dying simply see more clearly what has always been true: We are in the perpetual care of others. They are grateful for any and all kindnesses, and they do not take the generosity of others for granted.
Care | Generosity | People |
What we have done for ourselves alone, dies with us. What we have done for others and the world, remains and is immortal.
World |
People who like themselves and realize that they are God’s creation, are never really lonely. It is only when we lose track of our own value, and our personal connection with the divine, that we are desperate for others to distract us from our loss.
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
He who wants to set a good example must add a grain of foolishness to his virtue; then others can imitate and, at the same time, rise above the one being imitated – something which people love.
Example | Good | Love | People | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wants |
Randy Pausch, fully Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch
Pay it forward. Go out and do for others what somebody did for you.