This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander
When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.
Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as grace under pressure — grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.
Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as hard duty. Never regard study as duty but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.
Beauty | Duty | Influence | Joy | Opportunity | Regard | Spirit | Study | Work | Beauty | Learn |
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
Divine Providence has granted this gift to man, that those things which are honest are also the most advantageous.
Rabbi Eliezer ben Isaac Papo, aka "ha-Kosesh" or "The Saint"
How goodly is this good trait of a generous spirit. It is good for Heaven and good for people, good for himself and good for others, good for this World and good for the World to Come. It is a gift from God and ingrained in humanity.
R. G. Collingwood, fully Robert George Collingwood
Speech is after all only a system of gestures, having the peculiarity that each gesture produces a characteristic sound, so that it can be perceived through the ear as well as through the eye. Listening to a speaker instead of looking at him tends to make us think of speech as essentially a system of sounds; but it is not; essentially it is a system of gestures made with the lungs and larynx, and the cavities of the mouth and nose. We get still farther away from the fundamental facts about speech when we think of it as something that can be written and read, forgetting that what writing, in our clumsy notations, can represent is only a small part of the spoken sound, where pitch and stress, tempo and rhythm, are almost entirely ignored. But even a writer or reader, unless the words are to fall flat or meaningless, must speak them soundlessly to himself. The written or printed book is only a series of hints, as elliptical as the neumes of Byzantine music, from which the reader thus works out for himself the speech-gestures which alone have the gift of expression.
The Runes are a gift from the ancients that have given me my life’s work and enabled me to be of service to millions of people who I will never meet. I am heartened by the knowledge that this oracular system, this “compass for conduct,” has served so many in such profound and useful ways. So what are the Runes? 24 letters of a two thousand year old Western alphabet, carved on a set of clay stones, with the 25th stone left blank to represent the Unknowable, the Divine. These 25 Runes represent most of life’s major themes: Joy, Partnership, Disruption, Standstill, Movement, Defense, Journey, Fertility, Growth, Harvest, the Divine . . . “This is the only alphabet I know,” Margaret Mead once said, “that goes A-B-C-D . . . X-Y-God…"
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
The greatest gift we can give someone is to give him back his self-confidence.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, fully Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange
No doubt the Council did not canonize the Aristotelian notion of form with all its relations to other notions in the Aristotelian system. But it approved it as a stable human notion, in the sense in which we all speak of that which formally constitutes something (here, justification). In this sense it speaks of sanctifying grace as distinct from actual grace, saying that it is a supernatural, infused gift that inheres in the soul and by which man is formally justified.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
Criticizing others, giving them an unwelcome feeling, can be done by anyone. Uplifting them and giving them a good feeling - that takes a special gift and spending effort.
Maybe the gift of any great person is the power to converse with our own hearts.
Power |
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
Excitement | Mystery | Sense | Wonder | World | Companionship | Child |
“Let’s all do it,” said Mr. Watts. “Close your eyes and silently recite your name.” The sound of my name took me to a place deep inside my head. I already knew that words could take you into a new world, but I didn’t know that on the strength of one word spoken for my ears only I would find myself in a room that no one else knew about. “Another thing,” Mr. Watts said. “No one in the history of your short lives has used the same voice as you with which to say your name. This is yours. Your special gift that no one can ever take from you.”
Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson
If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
Alienation | Children | Good | Influence | Sense | Wonder | World | Child |
Ram Dass, aka Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert
I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
Two friends went into an orchard. One of them possessing much worldly wisdom, immediately began to count the mango trees there and the number of mangoes each tree bore, and to estimate what might be the approximate value of the whole orchard. His companion went to the owner, made friends with him, and then, quietly going into a tree, began at his host's desire to pluck the fruits and eat them. Whom do you consider to be the wiser of the two? Eat mangoes. It will satisfy your hunger. What is the good of counting the trees and leaves and making calculations? The vain man of intellect busies himself with finding out the why and wherefore of creation, while the humble man of wisdom makes friends with the Creator and enjoys His gift of supreme bliss.
Desire | Good | Man | Will | Wisdom | Friends | Intellect | Value |
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
The vain man of intellect busies himself with finding out the why and wherefore of creation, while the humble man of wisdom makes friends with the Creator and enjoys His gift of supreme bliss.