This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
Authority | Blame | Compassion | Creed | Discipline | Faith | Habit | Love | Past | Philosophy | Religion | Science | Society | Worship | Crisis |
The roots of ultimate insights are found not on the level of discursive thinking, but on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery, in our awareness of the ineffable. It is the level on which the great things happen to the soul, where the unique insights of art, religion, and philosophy come into being.
Art | Awareness | Awe | Mystery | Philosophy | Religion | Soul | Thinking | Unique | Wonder | Awareness |
The most disappointing feature of working for a cause is that so few people have a philosophy of life.
Cause | Life | Life | People | Philosophy |
In the world He appears to me as the mysterious, marvelous creative Force; within me He reveals Himself as ethical Will. In the world He is impersonal Force; within me He reveals Himself as Personality. The God who is known through philosophy and the God whom I experience as ethical Will do not coincide. They are one; but how they are one I do not understand.
Experience | Force | God | Personality | Philosophy | Will | World | God |
As for the necessity of coining new names for God, it is incomprehensible that philosophy and civilization can be enriched by ceasing to think of God as Life, Truth, Beauty, and Love, and beginning to think of Him as a blind and whirling space-time configuration dancing dizzily in an Einstein universe, plunging forward along a path of which He is ignorant, toward a goal of which He knows nothing whatever.
Beauty | Beginning | Civilization | God | Life | Life | Love | Necessity | Nothing | Philosophy | Space | Time | Truth | Universe | God | Think |
When enjoying life becomes the goal, it ceases producing happiness because the minute you get it you become dissatisfied. The booming entertainment industry is a symptom of a society dedicated toward tranquilizing its members with a lifetime of enjoyments.
Entertainment | Industry | Life | Life | Society | Society | Happiness |
It is easier to write ten volumes of philosophy than to put one principle into practice.
Philosophy | Practice |
A sense of “belonging,” a sense of meaningful association with others, has never required that one sacrifice his individuality as part of the bargain. Why, then, do so many rush to embrace a philosophy which tells them it is necessary.
Association | Individuality | Philosophy | Sacrifice | Sense | Association |
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s too close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.
Knowledge | Means | Mysticism | Philosophy |
[Groupthink] is rationalized conformity – an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right as and good as well.
Conformity | Good | Philosophy | Right |
No matter how or when a person acquired their irrational beliefs and self-sabotaging habits, they now, in the present, choose to maintain them - and that is why they are disturbed. One's past history and present life conditions importantly affect one; but they don't disturb one. A person's present philosophy is the main contributor of their current disturbance.
History | Life | Life | Past | Philosophy | Present | Self |
The philosophy of restorative justice is not a new concept, but one we've forgotten. As a kid, when I broke a window next door, my grandmother took me over there to apologize. I had to find a way to pay for the window - collect bottles or mow the grass. Restorative justice is a return to the values of our grandmothers.
Justice | Philosophy |
How freely we live life depends both on our political system and on our vigilance in defending its liberties. How long we live depends both on our genes and on the quality of our health care. How well we live ~ that is, how thoughtfully, how nobly, how virtuously, how joyously, how lovingly - depends both on our philosophy and on the way we apply it to all else. The examined life is a better life.
Better | Care | Health | Life | Life | Philosophy | System | Vigilance |
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed; neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Individual | Industry | Intention | Public | Security | Society | Society |