This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Michael Toms and Justine Willis Toms
The idea that work is "over here" and spiritual life is "over there" prevents us from engaging life to the fullest. We imagine that we are marking time at work and that life begins when we arrive home in the evening or on the weekends. The result is that work is not fully integrated into our days, and we wind up living at the margins of our lives.
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
When our senses of sight and hearing are distracted by the things outside, without the participation of thought, then the material things act upon the material senses and lead them astray. That is the explanation. The function of the mind is thinking: when you think, you keep your mind, and when you don’t think, you lose your mind. This is what heaven has given to us. One who cultivates his higher self will find that his lower self follows in accord. That is how a man becomes a great man.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
For my part, it is not the mystery of the incarnation which I discover in religion, but the mystery of social order, which associates with heaven that idea of equality which prevents the rich from destroying the poor.
Associates | Equality | Heaven | Mystery | Order | Religion |
Religion does what philosophy could never do; it shows the equal dealings of Heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to both rich and poor the same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire after it.
Happy | Heaven | Philosophy | Religion | Happiness |
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but sail we must and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
Evils... can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the Gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the earthly nature and this mortal sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise.
Earth | God | Good | Heaven | Mortal | Nature | Necessity | Wise |
Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heaven and on earth; and he who would be blessed and happy should be fro the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible, for then he an be trusted; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood and he who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool.
Beginning | Earth | Falsehood | Good | Happy | Heaven | Man | Truth | Blessed |
The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the wildest charms of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven whilst he pursued her as a star, she cannot be heaven if she stoops to such a one as he.
Acceptance | Heaven |
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
The builder of heaven has not so ill constructed his creature as that the religion, that is, the public nature, should fall out: the public and the private element, like north and south, like inside and outside, like centrifugal and centripetal, adhere to every soul, and cannot be subdued except the soul is dissipated. God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions.
God | Heart | Heaven | Nature | Public | Religion | Soul | God |
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
Adi Shankara, aka Śaṅkara Bhagavatpādācārya and Ādi Śaṅkarācārya
What is hell? To live in slavery to others. How is heaven attained? The attainment of heaven is the freedom from cravings. What is a person’s duty? To do good to all beings. What are worthless as soon as they are won? Honor and fame. What brings happiness? The friendship of the holy. What destroys craving? Realization of one’s true self. Who are our enemies? Our sense-organs, when they are uncontrolled. Who are our friends? Our sense-organs, when they are controlled. Who has overcome the world? He who has conquered his own mind.
Attainment | Duty | Fame | Freedom | Good | Heaven | Hell | Honor | Mind | Self | Sense | Slavery | World | Friendship |
Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider, nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is created above all things.
Better | Earth | God | Heaven | Love | Nothing | Rest | God |
T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot
Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to dust.