This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Energy is never created or destroyed. When one thing dies, life is that energy, the soul, that is transformed into another form... I believe everything’s a mess and our job is to create a form of harmony, a mixture of beauty and love. The more man gives love, the more he grows, the more love he has to give.
Beauty | Energy | Harmony | Life | Life | Love | Man | Soul | Wisdom | Beauty |
One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, an can only please by its resemblance. The appearance of reality is necessary to make any passion agreeably represented, and to be able to move others we must be moved ourselves, or at least seem to be so, upon some probably grounds.
There must be some supreme, universal design. Each of us comes to life and stays in the world for predestined period. Some leave forever, sometimes without a trace; others stay for a long time, both in life and in memory. We remain longest - we make a difference - when we manage to act not for ourselves but for others. It is possible to create good and evil. The greatest and most important thing a person can do is to understand that where good exists, evil also resides; what’s more, one must strive to stay on the side of righteousness, doing one’s best to promote good in the world. Only you can make this choice. You alone will be held responsible - by other people, by your progeny and by history.
Choice | Design | Evil | Good | History | Important | Life | Life | Memory | People | Righteousness | Time | Will | Wisdom | World | Understand |
A religion without mystery must be a religion without God. In dwelling on divine mysteries, keep thy heart humble, thy thoughts reverent, thy soul holy. Let not philosophy be ashamed to be confuted, nor logic to be confounded, nor reason to be surpassed. What thou canst not prove, approve; what thou canst not comprehend, believe; what thou canst believe, admire and love and obey. so shall thine ignorance be satisfied in thy faith, and thy doubt be swallowed up in thy reverence, and thy faith be as influential as sight. Put out thing own candle, and then shalt thou see clearly the sun of righteousness.
Doubt | Faith | God | Heart | Ignorance | Logic | Love | Mystery | Philosophy | Reason | Religion | Reverence | Righteousness | Soul | Wisdom |
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause; a motion, without a mover; a circle, without a centre; a time, without an eternity; a second, without a first: these are things so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must be a beast in understanding who can believe in them. The thing formed, says that nothing formed it; and that which is made, is, while that which made it is not! This folly is infinite!
Art | Cause | Chance | Earth | Eternity | Folly | Heaven | Nothing | Philosophy | Reason | Skill | Time | Understanding | Wisdom | Art | Think |
Two weeks before his death, a friend asked him half-jokingly if he had discovered any meaning in life. 'Yes,' he replied, ' there is a meaning, at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.'
Death | Friend | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Wisdom | Words |