This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be black or they be white.
Compassion | Justice | Love | Need | Wisdom |
No matter how idealistic our hopes... we eventually learn that spirituality is not about leaving life's problems behind, but about continually confronting them with honesty and courage. It is about ending our feeling of separation from others by healing our relationships with parents, co-workers, and friends. it is about bringing heightened awareness and compassion to our family life, careers, and community service.
Awareness | Compassion | Courage | Family | Honesty | Life | Life | Parents | Problems | Service | Spirituality | Awareness | Learn |
For no reason whatever should one judge the actions of creatures or their ;motives. Even when we see that it is an actual sin, we ought not to pass judgment on it, but have holy and sincere compassion and offer it up to God with humble and devout prayer.
Compassion | God | Judgment | Motives | Prayer | Reason | Sin | God |
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 |
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
Compassion | Endurance | Man | Sacrifice | Soul | Spirit | Will |
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
Compassion | Courage | Duty | Endurance | Glory | Heart | Man | Need | Past | Pity | Sacrifice | Soul | Spirit | Will | Privilege |
Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
Compassion is the effortless radiance of emptiness, free of concepts and beyond description. That is how a buddha’s activity for beings can be limitless. If you understand this, you will know that even when a cool breeze blows upon a sick person burning with fever, that itself is the blessings and compassion of the buddhas.
Blessings | Compassion | Will | Understand |
Ted Kennedy, fully Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy
The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures. Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue.
Circumstances | Commitment | Compassion | Fairness | Will | Work | Old |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
How many parents experience the child's reactions in terms of his being obedient, of giving them pleasure, of being a care to them, and so forth, instead of perceiving or even being interested in what the child feels for and by himself?
Care | Experience | Giving | Parents | Child |
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
While parents possess the original key to their offspring's experience, teachers have a spare key. They, too, can open or close the minds and hearts of children.
Parents |
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
Acknowledging experience and reflecting feelings are helpful interpersonal skills. However, they are not tricks or gimmicks. Nor can they be used mechanically. They are helpful only within a context of concern and respect. In human relations the agents of help are never solely the techniques, but the person who employs them. Without compassion and authenticity, the techniques fail.
Compassion | Experience | Feelings |
Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
Understanding, then, can lead to love. But the revese is also true. Love brings understanding; the two are reciprocal. So we must listen to understand, but we must also listen to put into play the compassion that the wisdom traditions all enjoin, for it is impossible to love another without hearing that other. If we are to be true to these religions, we must attend to others as deeply and as alertly as we hope that they will attend to us; Thomas Merton made this point by saying that God speaks to us in three places: tin scripture, in our deepest selves, and in the voices of the stranger. We must have the graciousness to receive as well as to give, for there is no greater way to depersonalize another than to speak without also listening.
Compassion | God | Hope | Love | Play | Receive | Will | Wisdom | God |
Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith
There is a great deal more to religion than mystical experiences. Religions try to provide answers to the mysteries of life, but they are also concerned with enhancing the quality of life. The great religions encourage and promote compassion and loving-kindness.
Compassion | Mystical | Religion |