This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
In the age of the individual's liquidation, the question of individuality must be raised anew.
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
But he who dies in despair has lived his whole life in vain.
Absence | Asceticism | Control | Fear | People | Position | Power | Question | Rancor | Research | Responsibility | Shame | Speculation | Stupidity | Thinking | Thought | Asceticism | Thought |
Theodore M. Hesburgh, fully Theodore Martin Hesburgh
All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance.
Man | People | Power | Responsibility |
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service. One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked his work. Is that not so?
Assertion | Business | Control | Destroy | Government | People | Politics | Responsibility | Statesmanship | Will | Government | Business |
Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits—the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.
Business | Destroy | Government | Responsibility | Statesmanship | Will | Government | Business | Old |
By living deeply in the present moment we can understand the past better and we can prepare for a better future.
Health | Responsibility | Will |
Practical efficiency is common and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare
Means | Responsibility |
We find ourselves ethically destitute just when, for the first time, we are faced with ultimacy, the irreversible closing down of the earth's functioning in its major life systems. Our ethical traditions know how to deal with suicide, homicide and even genocide, but these traditions collapse entirely when confronted with biocide, the killing of the life systems of the earth, and geocide, the devastation of the earth itself.
Life | Life | Objectives | Responsibility | Work |
We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.
Liberty | Order | People | Responsibility | Think |
The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.
Attention | Daring | Enough | Government | Law | Lord | Majority | Man | Opinion | Practice | Public | Responsibility | Will | Government |
Suppose that my “poverty” be a hunger for spiritual riches: suppose that by pretending to empty myself, pretending to be silent, I am really trying to cajole God into enriching me with some experience - what then? Then everything becomes a distraction. All created things interfere with my quest for some special experience. I must shut them out, or they will tear me apart. What is worst — I, myself am distraction. But, unhappiest of all — if my prayer is centered in myself, if it seeks only an enrichment of my own self, my prayer will be my greatest potential distraction. Full of my own curiosity, I have eaten of the tree of Knowledge and torn myself away from myself and God. I am left rich and alone and nothing can assuage my hunger: everything I touch turns into distraction.
For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.
Fear | Individual | Life | Life | Meaning | Men | Responsibility | Salvation | Work |
Our willingness to take an alternative approach to a problem will perhaps relax the obsessive fixation of the adversary on his view, which he believes is the only reasonable possibility and which he is determined to impose on everyone else by coercion…This mission of humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of thought has seriously impaired this capacity, which nonviolence must recover.
Attention | Bible | Cost | Fidelity | God | Labor | Means | Mystery | Reality | Responsibility | Risk | Sacrifice | Sorrow | Truth | Work | God | Bible |
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
Aspiration | Duty | Human race | Instinct | Peace | Race | Responsibility | Sacrifice | Survival | War | Weapons | Work | Aspiration | Understand |
Sunrise: hidden by pines and cedars to the east, I saw the red flame of the kingly sun glaring through the black trees, not like dawn but like a forest fire. Then the sun became distinguished as a person, and he shone silently and with solemn power through the branches, and the whole world was silent and calm.
Cruelty | Death | Decision | God | Hate | Human race | Joy | Love | Men | Pity | Race | Reality | Responsibility | Revelation | War | Worship | Cruelty | God | Old |
In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.
Individual | Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility |
In all His acts God orders all things, whether good or evil, for the good of those who know Him and seek Him and who strive to bring their own freedom under obedience to His divine purpose. All that is done by the will of God in secret is done for His glory and for the good of those whom He has chosen to share in His glory.
Convention | Death | Evasion | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Problems | Responsibility | System | Time | Tradition | Work | Understand |
True sanctity does not consist in trying to live without creatures. It consists in using the goods of life in order to do the will of God. It consists in using God’s creation in such a way that everything we touch and see and use and love gives new glory to God. To be a saint means to pass through the world gathering fruits for heaven from every tree and reaping God’s glory in every field. The saint is one who is in contact with God in every possible way, in every possible direction. He is united to God by the depths of his own being. He sees and touches God in everything and everyone around him. Everywhere he goes, the world rings and resounds (though silently) with the deep harmonies of God’s glory.
Convention | Evasion | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Problems | Responsibility | System | Time | Tradition | Work | Understand |