This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The sum of total worldly possessions is nothing but sorrow and evil.
Evil | Nothing | Possessions | Sorrow |
Find meaning not in possessions or positions, but in personal commitments to ideals bigger than our own needs. And the ideals that seem to consistently provide this kind of meaning are ideals of service-of acting for the common good and overcoming whatever risks and obstacles may lie in the way.
Good | Ideals | Meaning | Possessions | Service |
It is not possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized.
Mankind | Possessions |
It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized.
Mankind | Possessions |
The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of glory. But it is also the great mark of his excellence; for whatever possessions he may have on earth, whatever health and essential comfort, he is not satisfied if he has not the esteem of men.
Baseness | Comfort | Earth | Esteem | Excellence | Glory | Health | Man | Men | Possessions |
If you would take your possessions into the life to come, convert them into good deeds.
Deeds | Good | Life | Life | Possessions |
Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
Gold | Possessions | Soul | Happiness |
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned into it), are the natural securities for this transmission.
Avarice | Benevolence | Circumstances | Distinction | Family | Possessions | Power | Property | Society | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Wealth | Society |
All our possessions are as nothing compared to health, strength, and a clear conscience.
Conscience | Health | Nothing | Possessions | Strength |
I have indeed no business n life than to go about persuading you all, young and old, to care less for your bodies and your possessions and to make the protection of your souls your chief concern.
William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
No possessions are good but by the good use we make of them; without which wealth, power, friends, and servants, do not help to make our lives more unhappy.
Good | Possessions | Power | Wealth |
Grant to me that I may be made beautiful in my soul within, and that all external possessions be in harmony with my inner man. May I consider the wise man rich and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure.
Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of another....The degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself.
Abundance | Energy | Honesty | Individual | Life | Life | Means | Order | Organization | People | Possessions | Purpose | Purpose | Restraint | Simplicity | Sincerity |
Cultivate fine taste and discrimination in your choice of things. Get a right idea of values. Material possessions that you do not need and cannot use may be only an encumbrance. Let your guiding rule be not how much but how good. A thing you do not want is dear at any price. Avoid surplus age. Choose things that express your own individuality. You must possess your things or they will possess you. Look for quality rather than quantity. Unnecessary possessions bring unnecessary care and responsibility. Excess is waste. Have an occasional stocktaking and eliminate unsparingly.
Care | Choice | Excess | Need | Possessions | Right | Rule | Surplus | Taste | Will |
Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.
Dignity | Possessions | Loss |
Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.
Dignity | Possessions | Loss |
John Steinbeck, fully John Ernst Steinbeck
[Man] is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things—property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobile are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know—that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence.
Business | Man | Possessions | Business |
That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me. But this, too, that I cannot accomplish it the way I intended it, this resistance also reveals the mystery to me. He that forgets all being caused as he decides from the depths, he that puts aside possessions and cloak and steps bare before the countenance--this free human being encounters fate as the counter-image of his freedom. It is not his limit but his completion; freedom and fate embrace each other to form meaning; and given meaning, fate--with its eyes, hitherto severe, suddenly full of light--looks like grace itself.