This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
There is no favorable wind without direction.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
All that is worldly can be transcended: one can reflect on all things between heaven and earth from a higher vantage point. The demands of the present are neglected, life becomes eternal. Coming to heaven, one enters a sphere beyond space and time. Why then should one aspire to being received by king and emperors?
Earth | Eternal | Heaven | Life | Life | Present | Space | Time |
Teresa of Avila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
All the way to heaven is heaven.
Heaven |
What is it but blasphemy when God is merely my means to an end? That takes its toll. If we turn God into a puppet of our desires (even when that happens by the pious route of prayer) then he shuts up his heaven and we find ourselves thrown back into the silence of our unredeemed life.
Blasphemy | God | Heaven | Life | Life | Means | Pious | Prayer | Silence | God |
Ta hseuh “Great Learning” NULL
From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, all must regard cultivation of the personal life as the root or foundation. There is never a case in which the root is in disorder and yet the branches are in order.
Cultivation | Heaven | Life | Life | Order | People | Regard |
Wealth and honor, benefits and blessings shall enrich my life; poverty and failures, grief and anxiety shall help fulfill it. In my life, I will serve heaven and earth; in death I will find peace.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Blessings | Death | Earth | Grief | Heaven | Honor | Life | Life | Peace | Poverty | Wealth | Will |
When in a room only lit by a candle and the wind blows, you can either enjoy the breeze or loath the darkness.
Darkness |
[Plato's ideal society] guarantees to all people the right to an education that diagnoses and perfects their unique talents, plus a work role that conveys a sense of self-esteem, saving them from the neuroses of megalomania and the lust for power. It forbids privilege and sexism and all other criteria irrelevant to merit. It eliminates conflict of interest from those who hold office and gives the masses a potent checklist they can use to hold their rulers to account. Best of all, it eliminates all traces of "might makes right" and serves as a pattern laid up in heaven to rank actual societies in terms of what corrupts them. Society becomes more corrupt as the struggle for power becomes more brutal.
Education | Esteem | Heaven | Lust | Merit | Office | People | Power | Rank | Right | Self | Self-esteem | Sense | Society | Struggle | Unique | Work | Society | Privilege |
We mount to heaven mostly in the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures were successes.
Heaven |