This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Waste not your strength trying to push shut doors which God is opening. Neither wear yourself out in keeping open doors which ought to be forever sealed. Some episode in your life, over which you are anxious, is closed. it is in the past. Whatever its memory, you cannot change it. But you can shut the door. Go into some silent place of thought. Test your self-respect. Ask your soul, "Have I emerged from this experience with honor, or if not, can honor be retrieved?" And if your soul answers, "Yes," close then the door to that Past; hang a garland over the portal if you will, but come away without tarrying. The east is aflame with the radiance of the morning, and before you stands many another door, held open by the hand of God.
Change | Experience | God | Honor | Life | Life | Memory | Past | Respect | Self | Soul | Strength | Thought | Waste | Will | Wisdom | God |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
He who thinks much and to some purpose easily forgets his own experiences but not the thoughts each experience provoked.
Experience | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
All philosophy is divided into these three types. Its purpose is to seek out truth, knowledge and certainty.
Knowledge | Philosophy | Purpose | Purpose | Truth | Wisdom |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
In all things except those that are simply bad, change is to be feared: change of seasons, winds, food, and humors. And no laws are held in their true honor except those to which God has given some ancient duration, so that no one knows their origin or that they were ever different.
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
As virtue is necessary in a republic, and in a monarchy honor, so fear is necessary in a despotic government: with regard to virtue, there is no occasion for it, and honor would be extremely dangerous.
Fear | Government | Honor | Regard | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Raimon Panikkar, fully Raimon Panikkar-Alemany
To look for a purpose in Life outside Life itself amounts to killing Life. Reason is given by Life, not vice versa. Life is prior to meaning... Human life is joyful interrogation. Any answer is blasphemy.
Blasphemy | Life | Life | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Wisdom | Vice |
We do not honor the fathers by going back to the place where they stopped but by going on toward the things their vision foresaw.
Harold W. Percival, fully Sir Harold Waldwin Percival
Every thing existing on the physical plain is an exteriorization of a thought which must be balanced through the one who issued the thought and in accordance with that one's responsibility at the conjunction of time, condition and place. This law of thought is Destiny. Thinking is the basic factor in shaping human destiny. The machinery of the law is nature. The purpose of the universe is to make all units of matter conscious of progressively higher degrees.
Destiny | Law | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Thinking | Thought | Time | Universe | Wisdom | Thought |
Money is both the generation and corruption of purchased honor; honor is both the child and slave of potent money: the credit which honor hath lost, money hath found. When honor grew mercenary, money grew honorable. The way to be truly noble is to contemn both.
Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action; so meditate, that thou mayst do; so do, that thou mayst purchase honor; for which purchase, give God the glory.
Action | Glory | God | Honor | Life | Life | Meditation | Reward | Soul | Wisdom | God |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
If they really want to honor the soldiers, why don't they let them sit in the stands and have the people march by?
The basic significance of all difficulty is that it reorients us from the external to the spiritual. the meaning and purpose of the world remain to a large extent inexplicable. but one thing is clear: the purpose of all events is spiritual.
Difficulty | Events | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | World |