This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Their humanity will be conformed to the humanity of the Word and they will delight in it.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
It is commonly said: What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve.
The realized soul can play with the universe the way a child does a ball.
Pain |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything. Life is made up of little things. True greatness consists in being great in little things.
Pain |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry.
Anticipation | Change | Happy |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is so dressed.
Anticipation | Mind |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
Death | Health | Life | Life | Need | Pain | Perplexity | Repentance | Will |
Sholem Aleichem, pen name of Sholem Yakovf Rabinowitz or Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich
If somebody tells you you have ears like a donkey, pay no attention. But if two people tell you, buy yourself a saddle.
It struck me very deep this afternoon going with a hackney coach from my Lord Treasurer's down Holborne, the coachman I found to drive easily and easily, at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand, and told me that he was suddenly stuck very sick, and almost blind, he could not see. So I 'light and went into another coach with a sad heart for the poor man and trouble for myself lest he should have been struck with the plague, being at the end of town that I took him up; But god have mercy upon us all!
Pain |
Work and play are an artificial pair of opposites, because the best kind of play contains an element of work, and the most productive kind of work must include something of the spirit of play.
Pain |
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few… the goal of practice is to always keep your beginner’s mind…For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. If you discriminate too much you limit yourself. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient. If we lose our original self-sufficient mind, we will lose all precepts. When your mind becomes demanding, when you long for something, you will end up violated in your own precepts: not to tell lies, not to steal, not to kill, not to be immoral, and so forth. If you keep your original mind, the precepts will keep themselves. In the beginner’s mind there is no thought, ‘I have attained something’. All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
A poor girl may have an illusion that a prince will come and fetch her home. It is possible, some such cases have occurred. That the Messiah will come and found a golden age is much less probable.
Pain | Pleasure | Relationship | Time |
Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi
So I say, ‘Oh, I am sorry but soon you will see the bright sunrise every morning and beautiful sunset in the evening, every evening, but right now perhaps you…under your situation it may be impossible to see the beautiful sunset or bright sunrise, or beautiful flower in your garden, and it is impossible to take care of your garden, but soon you will see the beauty of the flowers and you will cut some flowers for your room.’ When you start to do this kind of thing you are alright. Don’t worry a bit. It means when you become you, yourself, and when you see things as they are, and when you become at one with your surroundings, in its true sense, there is true self.
If a person does good, most people will look for ulterior motives. People by training are very suspicious. Because most of the experiences they have had always had a condition attached, they don't expect others will do something just for the sake of doing it. Their belief systems just cannot accept others are capable of doing so. Our language is full of such sayings such as. One hand washes the other. ---You rub my back, I'll rub yours. In the study of one's personal language and self talk it can be observed that what one thinks and talks about to himself tends to become the deciding influences n his life. For what the mind attends to, the mind considers.
Belief | Change | Mind | Pain | People | Trouble | Circumstance | Truths |
Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.
Pain |
Simcha Zissel of Kelm, fully Rabbi imcha Zissel Ziv Broida, aka the Elder of Kelm
Prayer is an excellent training ground for practicing control of one’s thoughts.
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