This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen
Prayer is not just the informing of God of our needs, for He already knows them. God does not show Himself equally to all creatures. This does not mean that he has favorites, that He decides to help some and to abandon others, but the difference occurs because it is impossible for Him to manifest Himself to certain hearts under the conditions they set up. The sunlight plays no favorites, but its reflection is very different on a lake and on a swamp.
God | Prayer | Reflection | God |
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
The only difference between men of great achievement and those who remain in mediocrity is that the great pay little attention to what has been done and what obstacles or apparent reasons may stand in the way of achievement but devote themselves to contemplating what can or ought to be done. Those who allow their mental and emotional natures to recoil, refusing to let this sense reach out into the undiscovered, destroy their own capabilities and this keeps them always in the prison house of limitation. But it should be noted that prison is only the recoil or reflex of their own nature. Genius is that which goes on through conditions and circumstances and keeps eternally in the process of expansion and extension of achieving power.
Achievement | Attention | Circumstances | Destroy | Genius | Little | Mediocrity | Men | Nature | Power | Prison | Sense |
One person dies at the age of ten, another at the age of one hundred. Perfect saints die, and so do dangerous fools… Once dead, they are molding bones. As molding bones, they are equal. Who can tell the difference between them? Let us therefore grasp life’s moment – what is the point of worrying about the time after death?
There is a difference between happiness and enjoyment. Happiness is the result of pursuing a goal. Pursuit of the goal generates an energizing sense of purpose. Enjoyment, on the other hand, is an immediate sensation of pleasure; a person can enjoy a piece of cake, a piece of art, a good joke – it gives pleasure but then passes.
Art | Enjoyment | Good | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Happiness |
David Bohm, fully David Joseph Bohm
A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative.
Change | Discussion | People |
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Defense | Justice | Liberty | Moderation | Virtue | Virtue | Moderation |
Love confronts hate in the one way hate cannot comprehend, with something beyond itself - with compassion. Hate cannot go beyond itself. It draws its strength from the self's defense of self. Love lives to go beyond itself, drawing strength from that very act. Love can thus comprehend hate, integrating it into something larger. Slowly, hate is defeated as a grain of salt dissolves into the sweetness of a pond.
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
How simple it is to make a difference in the lives of others.
Daphne Du Maurier, fully Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning
Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.
The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail does not consist in the amount of work done by each but in the amount of intelligent work.
Work |