This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Abraham J. Twerski, fully Abraham Joshua Twerski
What is freedom if not the possibility of change?
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
The world is full of wickedness and misery precisely because it is based on freedom – yet that freedom constitutes the whole dignity of man and of his world. Doubtless at the price of its repudiation evil and suffering could be abolished, and the world forced to be “good” and “happy”; but man would have lost his likeness to God, which primarily resides in his freedom.
Dignity | Evil | Freedom | God | Good | Happy | Man | Price | Suffering | Wickedness | World |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
In Godmanhood human freedom unites with the divine freedom, the human image with the divine image. By inward experience and inward living of freedom the light of that Truth is attained.
Experience | Freedom | Light | Truth |
Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
The way to final freedom is within thy SELF.
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
Not from anything in the world would I be free from God; I wish to be free in God and for God. It is needful that my passion for a freedom without bounds should involve a conflict with the world, but not with God.
I knew that the complete mystic “way” includes both intellectual belief and practical activity; the latter consists in getting rid of the obstacles in the self and in stripping off its base characteristics and vicious morals, so that the heart may attain to freedom from what is not God and to constant recollection of Him.
Grace Helen Yerbury, fully Grace Helen Davies Yerbury
If man's religion is of any importance, it is not just a garment of expression of unity with and security in the professed beliefs of a special group. It is rather an attitude of respect for himself, his God, his fellowman, which underwrites all his activity, which is allowed freedom of expression within the limitations of that respect.
Freedom | God | Man | Religion | Respect | Security | Unity | Wisdom | Respect |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
Spirit is man’s whole creative act. Spirit is freedom, and freedom has its roots in the depths of pre-existential being.
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
God has laid upon man the duty of being free, of safeguarding freedom of spirit, no matter how difficult that may be, or how much sacrifice and suffering it may require.
Duty | Freedom | God | Man | Sacrifice | Spirit | Suffering |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
The dignity of man and the dignity of faith require the recognition of freedom to choose the truth, and freedom in the truth. Freedom cannot be identified with goodness or truth or perfection: it is by nature autonomous, it is freedom and not goodness.
Dignity | Faith | Freedom | Man | Nature | Perfection | Truth |
It is not causality that freedom is to be contrasted with, but constraint.
Constraint | Freedom |
James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
He produces not only our choice, but also the very freedom that is in our chance... In order to understand that God creates our free will in us, we must understand only that He wills us to be free. But He will not only that we should be free in power, but that we should be free in its exercise.
Chance | Choice | Free will | Freedom | God | Order | Power | Will | Wills | God | Understand |
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
It is in consciousness that freedom lies.
Consciousness | Freedom |
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
With freedom goes responsibility, and from responsibility comes the possibility of life enrichment.
Freedom | Life | Life | Responsibility |