This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are two things necessary for a traveler to bring him to the end of his journey - a knowledge of his way, a perseverance in his walk. If he walk in a wrong way, the faster he goes the farther he is from home; if he sit still in the right way, he may know his home, but never come to it: discreet stays make speedy journeys. I will first then know my way, ere I begin my walk; the knowledge of my way is a good part of my journey.
Good | Journey | Knowledge | Perseverance | Right | Will | Wisdom | Wrong |
H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
Better it is toward the right conduct of life, to consider what will be the end of a thing, than what is the beginning of it: for what promises fair at first may prove ill, and what seems at first a disadvantage, may prove very advantageous.
Beginning | Better | Conduct | Life | Life | Right | Will | Wisdom |
Everyone expects to go further than his father went; everyone expects to be better than he was born and every generation has one big impulse in its heart - to exceed all the other generations of the past in all the things that make life worth living.
Better | Father | Heart | Impulse | Life | Life | Past | Wisdom | Worth |
No matter! – so long as the world is the work of eternal goodness, and so long as conscience has not deceived us – to give happiness, and to do good, there is our only law, our anchor of salvation, our beacon light, our reason for existing. All religions may crumble away; so long as this survives we have still an ideal, and life is worth living.
Conscience | Eternal | Good | Law | Life | Life | Light | Reason | Salvation | Work | World | Worth |
Human law has the true nature of law only in so far as it corresponds to the right reason, and therefore is derived from the eternal law. In so far as it falls short of right reason, a law is said to be a wicked law; and so, lacking the true nature of law, it is rather a kind of violence.
Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, known also as Fares Chidiac, Faris Al Chidiac
They are quite different from us, and yet they are human beings! They have their customs and we have ours. Each side thinks his are the only right ones… These customs are not so important after all. It seems that the rules of life a society sets up for itself cannot be the last criterion of “good” and “bad,” “beneficial” and “harmful.”
Good | Important | Life | Life | Right | Society | Society |
Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard
In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.
Action | Diversity | Good | Inquiry | Intention | Man | Right | Truth | Wisdom |
Ancrene Wisse, aka Ancrene Riwle NULL
You ought to say fewer fixed prayers so that you may do more reading. Reading is good prayer. Reading teaches us how to pray, and what to pray for, and then prayer achieves it. In the course of reading, when the heart is pleased, there arises a spirit of devotion which is worth many prayers.
Devotion | Good | Heart | Prayer | Reading | Spirit | Worth |
Robert Bellarmine, fully Saint Robert Bellarmine
An ounce of peace is worth more than a pound of victory.
Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann
The rich and luxurious may claim an exclusive right to those pleasures which are capable of being purchased by pelf, in which the mind has no enjoyment, and which only afford a temporary relief to languor by steeping the senses of forgetfulness; but in the precious pleasures of the intellect, so easily accessible by all mankind, the great have no exclusive privilege; for such enjoyments are only to be procured by our own industry.
Enjoyment | Forgetfulness | Industry | Mankind | Mind | Right | Wisdom |