This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Would you like to liberate yourself from the lower realms of life? Would you like to save the world from degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from the shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself... Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
Awareness | Humanity | Life | Life | Self | Self-awareness | Work | World |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Of the best rulers the people (only) know that they exist; the next best they love and praise; the next they fear; the next they revile. When they do not command the people’s faith, some will lose faith in them, and then they resort to oaths! But (of the best) when their task is accomplished, their work done, the people all remark, “We have done it ourselves.”
Prayer is a way of increasing our sensitivity to the spiritual aspects of life. From this point of view, it is very much like exercise. A man’s muscles become responsive by training... The soul is stretched and enlarged by prayer just as the body is stretched and enlarged by physical exercise... Prayer is a way of aspiration. It is a way of lifting ourselves, of getting a higher look, of transcending self. For when a man looks at life only from inside himself, or only from within the walls of his home, or profession, seeing the world as though it were all in terms of his special interests, then he is “too full of himself to have any room for God.” But in prayer, he... relates his own little life and his own little needs and life of humanity. He lifts himself up by prayer, and achieves a high spiritual stature.
Aspiration | Body | God | Humanity | Life | Life | Little | Looks | Man | Prayer | Self | Soul | Training | World |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hold that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear, and the next the people hate. When the best leader's work is done, the people say, 'We did it ourselves.’
No one eats better food than that which he eats from the work of his hands.
Charity is incumbent on each person every day. Charity is assisting anyone, moving and carrying their wares, saying a good word. Every step one takes walking to prayer is charity; showing the way is charity.
William McGill, fully James McGill
The value of consistent prayer is not that he will hear us… but that we will finally hear Him.
Douglas Meeks, also M. Douglas Meeks
Does God work? This is a crucial question, for the denigration of work and the degradation of the worker in both antiquity and modernity are supported by the view that the gods do not have to work. That is what makes them gods.
What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?
Confidence | God | Little | Prayer | God |
The stock of ideas which mankind has to work with is very limited, like the alphabet, can at best have an air of freshness given it by new arrangements and combinations, or by application to new times and circumstances.
Circumstances | Ideas | Mankind | Work |