This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Every small improvement is a part of the bridge between today’s location and your heart’s desire.
Desire | Heart | Improvement |
Character is distilled out of our daily confrontation with temptation, out of our regular response to the call of duty. It is formed as we learn to cherish principles and to submit to self-discipline. Character is the sum total of all the little decisions, the small deeds, the daily reactions to the choices that confront us. Character is not obtained instantly. We have to mold and hammer and forge ourselves into character. It is a distant goal to which there is no shortcut.
Character | Deeds | Discipline | Duty | Little | Principles | Self | Temptation | Learn |
Greatness is a matter not of size but of quality, and it is within the reach of every one of us. Greatness lies in the faithful performance of whatever duties life places upon us and in the generous performance of the small acts of kindness that God has made possible for us. There is greatness in patient endurance; in unyielding loyalty to a goal; in resistance to the temptation to betray the best we know; in speaking up for the truth when it is assailed; in steadfast adherence to vows given and promises made. God does not ask us to do extraordinary things. He asks us to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Endurance | God | Greatness | Kindness | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Size | Temptation | Truth | Vows | God | Temptation |
David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
Entitlement as an emotional/psychological position stems from unresolved infantile, narcissistic egocentricity.
Position |
Alister Hardy, fully Sir Alister Clavering Hardy
The very fact that one can conceive [a]… possible solution may save one from being in the pessimistic position of imagining that there can be no possible purpose in the process at all. Such a defeatist loss of all sense of meaning… is one of the tragic outcomes of the materialism of today.
Materialism | Meaning | Position | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Loss |
Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories – the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. They are the great intellectual achievements of this century. The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe (that is the structure on scales from only a few miles to as large as a million million million million miles – the size of the observable universe). Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch. Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other – they cannot both be correct.
All souls are equal before God, so far as mere worldly eminence is concerned. Their inequality rests solely upon the degree that they have realized the eternal will by their own choice.
Choice | Eternal | God | Inequality | Will |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
Things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.
Respect is not carried in great, bold proclamations, but in small moments of surprising intimacy and empathy.
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
Duty |
Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Conscience | Cowardice | Position | Question | Right | Safe | Time |
It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it – that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is impracticable.
Action | Duty | Ends | Loyalty | Loyalty | Men | Motives | Policy | Principles | Public |
Robert M. Linder, fully Robert Mitchell Linder
Supported by the authority of all institutions, parenthood has come to amount to little more than a campaign against individuality. Every father and every mother trembles lest an offspring, in act or thought, should be different from his fellows; and the smallest display of uniqueness in a child becomes the signal for the application of drastic measures aimed at stamping out that small fire of noncompliance by which personal distinctness is expressed. In an atmosphere of anxiety, in a climate of apprehension, the parental conspiracy against children is planned.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Authority | Children | Conspiracy | Display | Father | Individuality | Little | Mother | Thought | Child |
Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Position |
John Henry Newman, aka Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman
Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. by faith only we know our position in the word of others. by faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?
Age | Circumstances | Faith | Parents | Position | Religion | Rights | World |