This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Religion is not mere conformity to moral law, it is an espousal of moral ideals, a dedication of the heart, a loyal devotion, the perpetual renewal of a right spirit within us.
Conformity | Dedication | Devotion | Heart | Ideals | Law | Moral law | Religion | Right | Spirit |
To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
Worth |
We now know that anything which is economically right is also morally right: there can be no conflict between good economics and good morals.
The wise man does not try to set up detailed systems. One uses what is right for today to govern th eworld of today, but this does not mean that it will be right for a later day.
Moral ambiguity creates mental cramps of various sorts, which lead to reflection, discussion, and argument… Morality resists theoretical unification under either a set of special-purpose rules or single general-purpose rule or principle, such as the categorical imperative or the principle of unity. If this is right, and if it is right because the ends of moral life are plural and heterogeneous in kind and because our practices of moral education rightly reflect this, then we have some greater purchase on why the project of finding a single theoretically satisfying moral theory has failed.
Ambiguity | Argument | Discussion | Education | Ends | Life | Life | Morality | Purpose | Purpose | Reflection | Right | Rule | Unity | Theoretical |
There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes [err].
The old view that the principles of right and wrong are immutable and eternal is no longer tenable. The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux.
Change | Eternal | Law | Little | Principles | Right | World | Wrong | Old |
The best politics is right action.
In humans, social conditioning establishes acceptable versus unacceptable behaviors and belief systems. Pejorative denunciations and condemnations are institutionalized, and judgmentalism is supported and encouraged. Behaviors are identified with morality and ethics and simply classified as good versus bad or right versus wrong.
If we wait until circumstances are precisely right for us to achieve and accomplish something, then nothing ever will be achieved or accomplished. Neither we nor circumstances are ever precisely right.
Circumstances | Nothing | Right | Will |
Life without commitment is not worth living.
Commitment | Life | Life | Worth |
The mind is the greatest secret in all of medicine. You cannot heal if you cannot feel. Healing isn’t from the brain but the soul. You’ve got to look for it in the right place, armed with the correct attitude. Without impeccability, there is no healing power.
Freedom of conscience is a natural right, both antecedent and superior to all human laws and institutions whatever: a right which laws never gave and which laws never take away.
Conscience | Freedom of conscience | Freedom | Right |