This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul... No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.
Character | Contentment | Joy | Life | Life | Reward | Soul |
There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness, and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.
Bitterness | Character | Pride | Sarcasm | Tenderness |
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. so do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
Beauty | Character | Labor | Light | Virtue | Virtue | Work | Beauty |
John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury
Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality and aimed at goodness more than greatness.
Character | Greatness | Knowledge | Man | Morality | Practice | Time | Wisdom |
To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, nor am lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.
Blessings | Character | Famous | Love | Memory | Soul | Sound |
God hides some ideal in every human soul. At some time in our life we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do some good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hidden impulse to do our best.
Excellence | God | Good | Impulse | Life | Life | Longing | Soul | Time | Wisdom | Excellence |
(Mathematical Division of Things, is never made in Minima; but Things may be Physically divided into their least parts; as when Concrete Matter is so far divided that it departs into Physical Monades, as it was in the first State of its Materiality...) Moreover the consideration of this Infinite Divisibility of every thing, into parts always less, is no unnecessary or unprofitable Theory, but a thing of great moment; viz. that thereby may be understood the Reasons and Causes of Things; and how all Creatures from the highest to the lowest are inseparably united with one another, by means of Subtiler Parts interceding or coming in between, which are the Emanations of one Creature into another, by which also they act one upon another at the greatest distance; and this is the Foundation of all Sympathy and Antipathy which happens in Creatures: And if these things be well understood of any one, he may easily see into the most secret and hidden Causes of Things, which ignorant Men call occult Qualities.
Consideration | Means | Men | Qualities | Sympathy | Wisdom |
Dreams reflect not only actual happenings, but also a whole host of thoughts and feelings that passed us by during the day because we were too busy or unwilling to catch them. [Besides expressing] the thoughts of our heart... powerful revealers of hidden talents, buried beauty, and unsuspected creative energy. They urge us to recognize that we are actually a lot nicer than we have hitherto realized.
Beauty | Day | Dreams | Energy | Feelings | Heart | Wisdom |
Friedrich Fröbel, fully Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel
Play is the highest level of child development. It is the spontaneous expression of thought and feeling. It is the purest creation of the child's mind as it is also a pattern and copy of the natural life hidden in man and in all things.
Life | Life | Man | Mind | Play | Thought | Wisdom | Child | Thought |
The shaman typically experiences ineffable joy in what he sees, an awe of the beautiful and mysterious worlds that open before him... He is a self-reliant explorer of the endless mansions of a magnificent hidden universe. Finally, he brings back his discoveries to build his knowledge and help others.
Hitopadesa or The Hitopadesa or Hitopadesha NULL
Amongst all things, knowledge is truly the best thing: from its not being liable ever to be stolen, from its not being purchasable, and from its being imperishable...Learning is superior to beauty; learning is better than hidden treasure; learning is a companion on a journey to a strange country; learning is strength inexhaustible.
Beauty | Better | Journey | Knowledge | Learning | Strength | Wisdom |
We possess a hidden higher self, the spark of divinity within the soul, which reflects this transcendental reality in our lives. By fulfilling certain necessary conditions, such as making ourselves more loving and compassionate, we can clear away the mental and emotional static that separates us from this inner reality, enabling the higher self to assume a central, guiding role in our lives. This awakening - called enlightenment, deliverance, or salvation in the various traditions - is the goal or purpose of human life. When we achieve this complete transformation of consciousness, we awaken from our limited, often painful condition and reconnect with our true nature.
Awakening | Consciousness | Divinity | Enlightenment | Life | Life | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Salvation | Self | Soul | Wisdom |
A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure, she embarks her soul in the traffic of affection; and, if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
Adventure | Ambition | Avarice | Heart | History | Life | Life | Soul | Wisdom | Woman | World | Ambition |