This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Exercise, temperance, fresh air, and needful rest are the best of all physicians.
Forgiveness. The experience of reconciliation following upon some breach of trust, marked on the one side by the acknowledgement of wrongdoing and the desire to make amends and on the other side by the capacity to understand and the willingness to resume friendly relations.
Amends | Capacity | Desire | Experience | Forgiveness | Reconciliation | Trust | Following | Understand |
Happy are those whose life is today and only today. Sad are the prophets and those others whose eyes are open to the past. Blessed are they who neither see their painful yesterdays nor their tomorrows filled with despair: they rest in peace.
Despair | Happy | Life | Life | Past | Peace | Rest | Blessed |
Alain-Fournier, Pseudonym of Henri Alban-Fournier NULL
There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, that it's rather hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us.
E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson
Nothing comes harder than original thought. Even the most gifted scientist spends only a tiny fraction of his waking hours doing it, probably less than one tenth of one percent. the rest of the time his mind hugs the coast of the known, reworking old information, adding lesser data, giving reluctant attention to the ideas of others (what use can I make of them?), warming lazily to the memory of successful experiments, and looking for a problem - always looking for a problem, something that can be accomplished, that will lead somewhere, anywhere.
Attention | Giving | Ideas | Memory | Mind | Nothing | Rest | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | Old |
It is counterproductive to assume we have created every misfortune in our life, as if we had made a conscious intention to do so. That kind of thinking leads to guilt and despair. Nevertheless, a sincere willingness to acknowledge that we have certain beliefs that have created our situation will enrich our approach to working through obstacles.
Despair | Guilt | Intention | Life | Life | Misfortune | Thinking | Will | Misfortune |
No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Produce great men, the rest follows.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
Just as life is defined as biological change and death as its lack, so meaning in life is characterized by the application of stable patterns to changing circumstances and the replacing of old patterns of understanding with new and exploratory ones. Meaning is found in the losing of it, the searching after it, and in the finding of it again. The meaning in your life is in flux and is to be found in the flux (the flow) of meaning, which is therefore itself a source of meaning in your life. All this does require, however, the developing of a tolerance for ambiguity, of a willingness to accept the inevitability of change and the precariousness of your present vision, and of an openness to the unending richness of your experience of the world in its manifold variety and diversity.
Ambiguity | Change | Circumstances | Death | Diversity | Experience | Life | Life | Meaning | Openness | Present | Understanding | Vision | World | Old |
No prophet ever sees things under the aspect of eternity. It is always partisan theology, always for the moment, always for the concrete community, satisfied to see only a piece of it all and to speak out that at the risk of contradicting the rest of it.
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
Much of our ethical life is lived unthinkingly, for we do as we do by habit, custom, tradition, or because we have thought the pros and cons of similar situations. We must somehow be able to decide what is valuable at this moment while at the same time remaining open to future revisions in our valuational pattern. This willingness to revise, to be open to new possibilities of value, is for me a key to life and value enhancement.
Custom | Future | Habit | Life | Life | Thought | Time | Tradition | Thought | Value |
Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
What you believe matters less than your capacity for belief - and your willingness to translate belief into constructive action.