This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise, and their conscience that is wrong.
Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe
Do not measure yourself with anybody else’s yardstick. Your obligation is to accomplish with your own unique talents. you do not need anybody else’s approval to be a worthy person.
Character | Need | Obligation | Unique | Approval |
A guilty conscience is a hell on earth, and points to one beyond.
Character | Conscience | Earth | Hell | Guilty |
There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart.
Character | Conscience | Heart | Tenderness | Will |
Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson
Instinct gave place temporarily to a system of habits, each one of which became contingent, their convergence of which became contingent, their convergence towards the preservation of society being alone necessary, and this necessity bringing back instinct with it. The necessity of the whole, felt behind the contingency of the parts, is what we call moral obligation in general - it being understood that the parts are contingent in the eyes of society only; to the individual, into whom society inculcates its habits, the part is as necessary as the whole.
Character | Individual | Instinct | Necessity | Obligation | Society | System | Society |
It is a conscience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man, for the convenience of another.
Character | Conscience | Man | Rights |
Harry Blackmun, fully Harold "Harry" Andrew Blackmun
With our finite minds we cannot presume to know if there is a Purpose. We sense, however, the presence of something greater than we can comprehend, a force as yet unknown to us - perhaps even to be unknown. So we accept our situation, learn from it, and do the best we can, resting on faith, despair, or cynicism, depending on the individual. Overriding all this must be an obligation - self-imposed or externally impressed - to do the best one can for others, to relieve suffering and to exercise compassion. We are all in this together, for life is a common, not an individual, endeavor.
Character | Compassion | Cynicism | Despair | Faith | Force | Individual | Life | Life | Obligation | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Sense | Suffering | Learn |
In vain we attempt to clear our conscience by affecting to compensate for fraud or cruelty by acts of strict religious homage towards God.
Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influences to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.
Character | Conscience | Teach | Work |
Your awareness of your self-worth is not a contradiction to the obligation to be humble. Humility is not a lack of awareness of your positive accomplishments and abilities. Only a fool is not aware of what he really is an this is not humility. Humility is the internalized awareness with every fiber of your body that everything, yes everything, you have is not your own. Rather it is a gift from the Almighty who bestowed His kindness on you. The more a person actually feels that what he has is a gift the greater is his humility.
Awareness | Body | Character | Contradiction | Humility | Kindness | Obligation | Self | Self-worth | Worth | Awareness |
Willard C. Butcher, fully Willard Carlisle Butcher
Business leaders today can’t shrink from their obligation to set a moral example.
Business | Character | Example | Obligation |
A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
Character | Conscience | Good | Wisdom |
A good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself which the neglect of legislators had forgotten to supply.
Character | Conscience | Good | Neglect | Will |
It is a secret, well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they; do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.
Character | Friend | Men | Obligation |