This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Plutarch tells us of an idle and effeminate Etrurian who found fault with the manner in which Themistocles had conducted a recent campaign. "What," said the hero in reply, "have you, too, something to say about war, who are like the fish that has a sword, but no heart?" He is always the severest censor on the merits of others who has the least worth of his own.
I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of help. I don't know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do...
If I – as a beneficiary of that exact formula – will concede that my own life was indeed enriched by that precise familial structure, will the social conservatives please (for once!) concede that this arrangement has always put a disproportionately cumbersome burden on women? Such a system demands that mothers become selfless to the point of near invisibility in order to construct these exemplary environments for their families. And might those same social conservatives – instead of just praising mothers as sacred and noble – be willing to someday join a larger conversation about how we might work together as a society to construct a world where healthy children can be raised and healthy families can prosper without women have to scrape bare the walls of their own souls to do so?
Belief | Destiny | Faith | God | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | God |
Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy.
When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. If you are appalled, he said, then it was a devil who had visited you. If you feel lightened, it was an angel.
The search for satisfaction to Aahdf to protection and interest Almatatin, but a generous gift to the world. Saved one of every misery, Azaha of the way. To dream an obstacle, not in front of himself, but also in front of others. Only then will be free to serve the people and enjoy Bhbhm.
Belief | Destiny | Faith | God | Hope | Humanity | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Search | Will | God |
Your father only has one foot on this earth. And really, really long legs.
Emotions |
When I sit in my silence and look at my mind, it is only questions of longing and control that emerge to agitate me, and this agitation is what keeps me from evolving forward.
There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated staue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket. Prayer is a realtionship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm ainming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.
Belief | Books | Care | Decision | Destiny | Divinity | Faith | God | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Reason | Religion | Scripture | Will | God |
Whenever I would feel such happiness my guilt alarm went off.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How he sleepeth! having drunken weary childhood's mandragore, from his pretty eyes have sunken pleasures to make room for more-- sleeping near the withered nosegay which he pulled the day before.
Woman's discontent increases in exact proportion to her development.
Emil G. Hirsch, fully Emil Gustav Hirsch
In the common sense of the word, Judaism is not a religion, it is not a system of dogmas, of sacramental grace; it is not a bundle of rites and ceremonies; it is not a road to happiness in the hereafter; it is not a scheme of salvation from original sin; it does neither stand nor fall with our views as to the character of those books we call sacred, and as to their authorship. But it is a message to the world that righteousness must be its own reward, and is of that force which builds the world and shapes the courses of men.
Agnostic | Belief | Charity | God | Man | Mercy | Need | Pity | Thinkers | God | Agnostic |
But what about human nature? Can it be changed? And if not, will it endure under Anarchism? Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can anyone speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities. Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations. This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the mind. It is the conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the world over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious observation of the tendencies of modern society: individual liberty and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of what is fine and true in man.
Atheism | Belief | Earth | Fighting | God | Individual | Influence | Man | Power | Rule | Servitude | Thought | God | Thought |