This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
Nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all. That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, is humility. It is the last thing left in me, and the best: the ultimate discovery at which I have arrived, the starting point for a fresh development.
Discovery | Humility | Nature | Nothing | Suffering | World | Discovery |
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
Sanity | Statistics | Suffering | Think |
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Punishment | Reward | Suffering |
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other.
Ability | Compassion | Love | Suffering | Understanding |
Theologia Germanica, aka Theologia Deutsch or Teutsch NULL
God in eternity is without contradiction, suffering and grief, and nothing can hurt or vex him of all that is or befalleth. But with God, when he is made Man, it is otherwise.
Contradiction | Eternity | God | Grief | Man | Nothing | Suffering |
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
Knowledge | Life | Life | Loneliness | Longing | Love | Mankind | Mockery | Pain | Pity | Poverty | Search | Suffering | World |
By keeping your focus on spiritual elevation you can minimize suffering about worldly matters.
Dmitri Shostakovich, fully Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich
Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment.
It is crucial to understand and to gain the conviction that the laws of cause and effect govern the universe and all beings. … There are only two way to erase the trace left by a harmful act: either by going through the experience of suffering that is its natural consequence, or by purifying it with the appropriate antidotes before the appearance of its dire effects.
Appearance | Cause | Experience | Suffering | Universe | Govern | Understand |
There is a field of energy that permeates the universe. This is understood by science, and now what we're beginning to discover is that field of energy is alive. One of its qualities is sentience or consciousness, and we can interact with that field. We're not just closed off in our physical bodies. We have the capacity to interact with the larger field of consciousness; it permeates our lives and touches us day-in and day-out. If there is needless suffering happening in the world, it tinges and colors the ocean of consciousness that we swim in, and we imbibe this daily. So, if we can create a world without undue suffering--one where we're not killing off all of these species and harming one another--it will change the atmosphere of our lives.
Beginning | Capacity | Change | Consciousness | Day | Energy | Qualities | Science | Suffering | Universe | Will | World |