This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If the memory is annihilated, the devil is powerless, and it liberates us from a lot of sorrow, affliction and sadness.
Blessings | Desire | God | Heart | Knowledge | Means | Meditation | Noise | Nothing | Pleasure | Quiet | Sense | Silence | Soul | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Work | God | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
As God sets the soul in this dark night… He allows it not to find attraction or sweetness in anything whatsoever. God transfers to the spirit the good things and the strength of the senses… if it is not immediately conscious of spiritual sweetness and delight, but only of aridity and lack of sweetness, the reason for this is the strangeness of the exchange. #6. If those souls to whom this comes to pass knew how to be quiet at this time… then they would delicately experience this inward refreshment in that ease and freedom from care… it is like the air which, if one would close one’s hand upon it, escapes. In this state of contemplation… it is God Who is now working in the soul. He binds its interior faculties, and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. God communicates… by pure spirit. From this time forward imagination and fancy can find no support in any meditation.
Contemplation | Darkness | Faith | God | Grace | Heart | Love | Meditation | Noise | Order | Pleasure | Practice | Progress | Rest | Sense | Silence | Solitude | Soul | Thought | Understanding | Will | God | Contemplation | Obstacle | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
Any kind of thought or meditation or pleasure would impede and disturb the soul and would introduce noise into the deep silence which the soul should observe in order to hear the deep and delicate voice in which God speaks to the heart in this secret place. When the soul is led into silence, it must forget even the practice of loving advertence… it must practice that advertence only when it is not conscious of being brought into solitude or interior rest or forgetfulness. Pure contemplation consists in receiving. The soul approaches God more nearly by not understanding than by understanding. Faith is darkness to the understanding. God brought them to this solitude and emptiness of their faculties and operations that He may speak to their hearts. God is leading you through the state of solitude and recollection and withdrawing you from your labors of sense. Return not to sense again. Lay aside your operations for they will now be a great obstacle and hindrance to you, since God is granting you the grace of Himself working within you. God is bearing the soul in His arms… and thus, although it is making progress at the rate willed by God Himself, it is not conscious of such movement. Three kinds of love: 1. the soul now loves God, not through itself but through Himself. 2. the soul is absorbed in the love of God and God surrenders Himself to the soul with great vehemence. 3. the soul love Him for Who He is.
Absolute | Forgetfulness | God | Habit | Hope | Journey | Knowing | Knowledge | Means | Memory | Method | Regard | Rights | Silence | Soul | Will | God |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the one who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.
Love | Repentance | Silence |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
Worldly glory is a reef in the sea covered by water; for as this lies unknown to the sailor until his vessel strikes it, cracks up, is filled with water and sinks, so vain glory does to a man until it drowns and destroys him.
Saint Ambrose, born Aurelius Ambrosius NULL
In this matter [of the incarnation] my ignorance far surpasses my knowledge; but this one thing I know well, that I am ignorant of things which I cannot understand.
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
Mercy and justice (just judgment) in one soul is like a man who worships God and the idols in one house. Mercy is opposed to justice. Justice is the equality of the even scale, for it gives to each as he deserves; and when it makes recompense, it does not incline to one side or show respect of persons. Mercy, on the other hand, is a sorrow and pity stirred up by goodness, and it compassionately inclines a man in the direction of all; it[, mercy,] does not requite [or give equal retribution, an eye for an eye, to] a man who is deserving of evil, and to him who is deserving of good it gives a double portion.
Beginning | Body | Dawn | Experience | Force | God | Heart | Light | Love | Man | Practice | Silence | Truth | Will | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
You are a hidden God. Neither is the sublime communication nor the sensible awareness of His nearness a sure testimony of His gracious presence, nor is dryness and a lack of these a reflection of His absence. A person who wants to find Him should leave all things through affection and will, enter within himself in deepest recollection, and regard things as though they were nonexistence. God is hidden in the soul. You yourself are His dwelling and His secret chamber and hiding place. God is never absent. In order to find Him you should forget all your possessions and all creatures and hide in the interior, secret chamber of your spirit. And there, closing the door behind you, you should pray to your Father in secret. Remaining hidden with Him, you will experience Him in hiding, and love and enjoy Him in hiding. God is the substance and concept of faith, and faith is the secret and the mystery. Faith and love are like the blind man’s guides. They will lead you along a path unknown to you, to the place where God is hidden. Pay no attention to anything which your faculties can grasp. You should never desire satisfaction in what you understand about God, but in what you do not understand about Him Never stop with loving and delighting in your understanding and experience of God, but love and delight in what is neither understandable nor perceptible of Him. Spiritual wounds of love are very delightful and desirable. The soul would desire to be ever dying a thousand deaths from the thrusts of the lance, for they make her go out of herself and enter into God. The wounded soul, strengthened from the fire caused by the wound, went out after her Beloved Who wounded her, calling for Him, that He might heal her. One goes out from oneself through self-forgetfulness.
Charity | Contempt | Need | Practice | Silence | Work | Understand |
Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
Art is the conveyance of spirit by means of matter.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Silence |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.
Silence |
There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today... they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.
Simeon ben Azai, sometimes Ben Azai
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it, thou art a fool.
We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?
Care | Change | Conscience | Forgiveness | Heart | Question | Right | Silence | Time | Will | Forgiveness |
Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
The accomplished hypocrite does not exercise his skill upon every possible occasion for the sake of acquiring facility in the use of his instruments. In all unimportant matters, who is more just, more upright, more candid, more honorable?
Silence |
The man who seeks a quid pro quo from God builds on uncertainty, whereas the man who considers himself a debtor will receive sudden and unexpected riches.