This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A significant life - one that is more than just happy or meaningful - requires dedication to ends that we choose because they exceed the goal of personal well-being. We attain and feel our significance in the world when we create, and act for, ideals that may originate in self-interest, but ultimately benefit others.
Dedication | Ends | Happy | Ideals | Life | Life | Self | Self-interest | World |
Ultimately, what leads to wise choices is love—the attention to others as ends in themselves, as I am an end in myself, not a means to an end. The way love is implemented and practiced is care, which is attending to the true needs of others. So wise choices come about through care.
A conscience which has been bought once will be bought twice.
Conscience | Will |
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Conspiracy | Conversation | Diversion | Ends | People | Public |
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, fully Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
Conscience | Humanity | Justice |
All men seek one goal: success or happiness. The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society. First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal - a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends - wisdom, money, materials and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.
Ends | Means | Men | Money | Service | Society | Success | Wisdom |
Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow-men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience and revelation.
Conscience | Duty | God | Men | Reason | Respect | Revelation | Virtue | Virtue | Respect |