This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more - there is action. The noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look; it is the embodiment of the sentiment of actual help.
Action | Beauty | Poetry | Sentiment | Sympathy | Wisdom | Beauty |
History tells us that the pendulum of time is sweeping to extremes of subjectivism, to cults of selfishness and savage irresponsibility. We must bring it back to balance by taking up the burdens of mankind as our own, with an entirely new vision and confidence. And we must do this perhaps as a condition for continued existence itself.
Balance | Confidence | Existence | History | Mankind | Selfishness | Time | Vision |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
Every moral act of love, of mercy, and of scarifice brings to pass the end of the world where hatred, cruelty, and selfishness reign supreme.
Cruelty | Love | Mercy | Selfishness | World |
It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcome a pure sentiment by an involuntary glow of satisfaction. While the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.
Art | Knowledge | Literature | Mind | Nature | Perception | Sentiment | Soul | Thought | Wisdom |
Louis K. Anspacher, fully Louis Kannan Anspacher
Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.
Dependence | Man | Marriage | Obligation | Woman |
Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin
Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment – originating in the social instinct, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in alter times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit.
Conscience | Feelings | Habit | Instinct | Men | Reason | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Sentiment | Instruction |
Spiritual progress must be slow as long as we are worried, frightened, resentful, sick, or discouraged – and those things can be overcome only through prayer. It is a duty and a joy to help others, wisely, and to leave the world a better place than we found it – and we can do that only through prayer. The more we pray for ourselves the more power will our prayers have for any other purpose whatsoever; so we see that praying for ourselves is the reverse of selfishness – it is truly glorifying God.
Better | Duty | God | Joy | Power | Prayer | Progress | Purpose | Purpose | Selfishness | Will | World |
Harold Laski, fully Harold Joseph Laski
A moral obligation is no less compelling because it may end in failure.
Failure | Obligation |
To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
Cooperation | Evil | Good | Obligation | System |
New York Times Editorial on the Holocaust NULL
It was and it is to do all that can be done to eradicate an evil thing out of our civilization… a thing so incredibly wicked that it would not have been believable of modern man if it had not actually occurred. This evil, this wickedness began with intolerance and hate in a few men’s hearts. It spread until it almost wrecked the world. Now the obligation is to remember, not in hate, not in the spirit of revenge, but so that this spirit cannot ever flourish again so long as man remains on earth. And to this end, let us begin, each of us, by looking into our own hearts.
Civilization | Earth | Evil | Hate | Intolerance | Man | Men | Obligation | Revenge | Spirit | Wickedness | World |
Persecution of a dissenter is always popular I the group which he has abandoned. Toleration of dissent is no sentiment of the masses.
Dissent | Sentiment | Toleration |
A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds... An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.
Existence | Force | Obligation | Right | Worth |
It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.
Man | Obligation | World |
The source of my obligation is the value I place on the relatedness of caring.
Obligation | Value |
Ambrose Redmoon, pen name for James Neil Hollingsworth
Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.
Individual | Obligation | Right |