This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
The core paradox that underlies spirituality is the haunting sense of incompleteness, of being somehow unfinished, that comes from the reality of living on this earth as part and yet also not-part of it. For to be human is to be incomplete, yet year for completion; it is to be uncertain, yet long for certainty; to be imperfect, yet long for perfection; to be broken, yet crave wholeness. All these yearnings remain necessarily unsatisfied, for perfection, completion, certainty, and wholeness are impossible precisely because we are imperfectly human – or better, because we are perfectly human, which is to say humanly imperfect.
Better | Earth | Paradox | Perfection | Reality | Sense | Spirituality | Wholeness | Yearnings |
There is no nation on earth so dangers as a nation fully armed, and bankrupt at home.
Earth |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The power of population is infinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases at a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.
Acquaintance | Earth | Man | Power | Will |
Jim Lovell, fully James "Jim" Arthur Lovell
The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring - the earth from here is a vast ovation to the big vastness of space.
Awe | Earth | Loneliness | Space |
life begins here upon earth, and the soul of man lives and breathes where it loves; and love, in living faith, has strength enough to make the soul of man experience unity with God – two natures in a single spirit and love.
Earth | Enough | Experience | Faith | God | Life | Life | Love | Man | Soul | Spirit | Strength | Unity | God |
The animosity which Nations reciprocally entertain is nothing more than what the policy of their Governments excites to keep up the spirit of the system. Each Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of Man, but through the medium of a false system of Government.
Ambition | Enemy | Government | Imagination | Intrigue | Man | Means | Nations | Nothing | Perfidy | Policy | Spirit | System | Government |
Nahuatl Wise Men including Nezahualcoyotl NULL
One day we must go, one night we will descend into the region of mystery. Here, we only come to know ourselves; only in passing are we here on earth. In peace and pleasure let us spend our lives; come let us enjoy ourselves. Let not the angry do so; the earth is vast indeed! Would that one lived forever; would that one were not to die!
To live a day, to care for a single day, is to shape a life. Each day is an opportunity to choose where to place our care. What shall we do today? What simple acts of remembrance will we use to punctuate our time and enrich our walk upon the earth this single day?
Care | Day | Earth | Life | Life | Opportunity | Time | Will |
New York Times Editorial on the Holocaust NULL
It was and it is to do all that can be done to eradicate an evil thing out of our civilization… a thing so incredibly wicked that it would not have been believable of modern man if it had not actually occurred. This evil, this wickedness began with intolerance and hate in a few men’s hearts. It spread until it almost wrecked the world. Now the obligation is to remember, not in hate, not in the spirit of revenge, but so that this spirit cannot ever flourish again so long as man remains on earth. And to this end, let us begin, each of us, by looking into our own hearts.
Civilization | Earth | Evil | Hate | Intolerance | Man | Men | Obligation | Revenge | Spirit | Wickedness | World |
We are shown that our live exists with the tree life, that our well-being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings. In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics… We believe that all living things are spiritual beings. Spirits an be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter. A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter - grass matter. The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.
Consciousness | Energy | Force | Life | Life | Politics | Spirit |
Death is but a new birth of the spirit into the great unknown.
Henri Nouwen, fully Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen
Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God’s Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, within us.
God established the world as “A will to existence, to consciousness, to spirit.” He established it, not as complete, but as becoming. He does not build it as a house, but plants it, like a flower, in the seed, that it may grow, that it may struggle upwards stage by stage to fuller existence, aspiring with toil and endeavor towards the height where, in the image of the Creator, as a free and reasonable spirit capable of personality, it may realize the aim of its being.
Consciousness | Existence | God | Personality | Spirit | Struggle | Will | World |
How are we to bring children to the spirit of citizenship and humanity which is postulated by democratic societies? By the actual practice of democracy at school. It is unbelievable that at a time when democratic ideas enter into every phase of life, they should have been so little utilized as instruments of education.
Children | Citizenship | Democracy | Education | Humanity | Ideas | Life | Life | Little | Practice | Spirit | Time |