This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.
Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |
Arthur Stainback, fully Arthur House Stainback
The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.
Character | Compassion | Individual | Value |
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
This is a property of the rational soul, love of one’s neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus then right reason differs not at all from the reason of justice.
Justice | Law | Love | Modesty | Nothing | Property | Reason | Right | Soul | Truth | Wisdom | Value |
Victor Weisskopf, fully Victor "Viki" Frederick Weisskopf
Most forms of human creativity have one aspect n common: the attempt to give some sense to the various impressions, emotions, experiences, and actions that fill our lives, and thereby to give some meaning and value to our existence... The crisis of our time in the Western world is that the search for meaning has become meaningless for many of us.
Character | Creativity | Emotions | Existence | Meaning | Search | Sense | Time | World | Crisis | Value |
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sounds like heresy or plots.
The physical loss is not sufficient for mourning. Purely on a physical level what would a person gain if he lived many more years? What is the ultimate gain in devouring hundreds more chickens and thousands more loaves of bread? What is the overall difference if the deceased left all this to others? The Torah obligates us to mourn to emphasize the loss of the true value of life; which is the spiritual elevation a person could have gained if he were still alive. The Almighty placed him on this earth for this purpose. The person’s death should remind the mourners to fill their lives with the spiritual growth that they are capable of.
Character | Death | Earth | Growth | Life | Life | Mourn | Mourning | Purpose | Purpose | Loss | Torah | Value |
To maintain an opinion because it is thine, and not because it is true, is to prefer thyself above the truth.
The foolish and vulgar are always accustomed to value equally the good and the bad.