This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
What is between one person and another is emptiness, nothingness, a space or field in which we can meet, talk, love, hate, hurt, nurture, encourage, and otherwise engage in ethically significant activity with one another. The between is the place wherein we are able to interact with one another, and it is a field of possibility, an opportunity as much as an emptiness to fill. Leaving the notion of emptiness to one side for the present, the betweenness of men and women works itself out in the way called “ethics,” which occasions and is the description of the consensual rules and structures of social existence.
Ethics | Existence | Hate | Love | Men | Opportunity | Present | Space |
Prayer transcends imposing our will upon others. Prayer represents opportunity to become more than such cycles by employing our science of feeling to bring new possibilities to an existing situation… Prayer is a concrete, measurable, and directive force in creation. Prayer is real. To pray is to do “something!
Force | Opportunity | Prayer | Science | Will |
Every new experience is a new opportunity of knowing God. Every new experience is like a jewel set into the texture of our life, on which God shines and makes interpretation and revelation of Himself.
Experience | God | Knowing | Life | Life | Opportunity | Revelation | God |
The opportunity offered by a shrinking economy to experience simple pleasures might be one of God’s better gifts to this generation.
Better | Experience | God | Opportunity |
Philosophy has the task and the opportunity of helping banish the concept that human destiny here and now is of slight importance in comparison with some supernatural destiny.
Destiny | Opportunity | Philosophy |
One who fears limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to intelligently begin again.
Failure | Opportunity | Failure |
Too much to live with, too little to live for… In our own day this question of life purpose is more urgent than ever. Three factors have converged to fuel a search for significance without precedent in human history. First, the search for the purpose of life is one of the deepest issues of our experiences as human beings. Second, the expectation that we can all live purposeful lives has been given a gigantic boost by modern society’s offer of the maximum opportunity for choice and change in all we do. Third, our fulfillment is thwarted by this stunning fact: Out of more than a score of great civilizations in human history, modern Western civilization is the very first to have a no agreed-on answer to the question of the purpose of life… Most of us in the midst of material plenty, have spiritual poverty.
Change | Choice | Civilization | Day | Expectation | Fulfillment | History | Life | Life | Little | Opportunity | Plenty | Poverty | Precedent | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Search | Society | Expectation |
Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wished we’d had.
Children | Opportunity | Parents |
Failure is an opportunity to learn from your and other’s mistakes. But if you always blame others, there is no end to blaming.
Blame | Failure | Opportunity | Learn |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
To improve the golden moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
To live a day, to care for a single day, is to shape a life. Each day is an opportunity to choose where to place our care. What shall we do today? What simple acts of remembrance will we use to punctuate our time and enrich our walk upon the earth this single day?
Care | Day | Earth | Life | Life | Opportunity | Time | Will |
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness.
Kindness | Opportunity |
Starhawk, born Miriam Simos NULL
Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation. To do ritual, you must be willing to be transformed in some way. That inner willingness is what makes the ritual come alive and have power.
Opportunity | Power |
The world has the wealth and resources to provide everyone the opportunity to live a decent life. We consume too much when market relationships displace the bonds of community, compassion, culture, and place. We consume too much when consumption becomes an end in itself and makes us lose affection and reverence for the natural world.
Compassion | Culture | Life | Life | Opportunity | Reverence | Wealth | World |
Faith, then, is a quality of human living. At its best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service; a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen to oneself at the level of immediate event. Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive; and face others with cheerful charity.
Charity | Confidence | Courage | Faith | Joy | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Meaning | Men | Opportunity | Quiet | Serenity | Service | Sorrow | Universe | World |
The Torah preceded creation in that it was the idea behind creation. It is the primordial knowledge of existence. It is the idea to which life is nothing more than a means. God is eternal, and the temporary nature of the physical creation is contradictory to eternity. Creation, therefore, it not an end in itself; it is a means. It is a means for giving the part of creation made in the Divine image – mankind – the opportunity to earn a share with Hashem in eternity.
Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Giving | God | Knowledge | Life | Life | Mankind | Means | Nature | Nothing | Opportunity | God | Torah |
Each day you have the opportunity to change yourself. What have you done today?
Change | Day | Opportunity |