This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Our total reality and total existence are beautiful and meaningful . . . . We should judge reality by the little which we truly know of it. Since that part which conceptually we know fully turns out to be so beautiful, the real world of which we know so little should also be beautiful. Life may be miserable for seventy years and happy for a million years: the short period of misery may even be necessary for the whole.
Existence | Happy | Life | Life | Little | Reality | World |
None strive to know their proper merit but strain for wisdom, beauty, spirit And lose the praise that is their due when they've the impossible in view.
For the vast majority of mankind the most urgent problem is not war, or communism, or the cost of living, or taxation. It is hunger. Over 15,000,00,00 people, something like two-thirds of the world's population, are living in conditions of acute hunger, defined in terms of identifiable nutritional disease. This hunger is at the same time the effect and the cause of the poverty, squalor and misery in which they live.
Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL
Those who have conquered themselves...live in peace, alike in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, praise and blame...To such people a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same...Because they are impartial, they rise to great heights.
Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL
Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.
Merit | Opportunity |
Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL
To listen to the praise of the worldly is to take the unwise as the wise, to take the unintelligent as the intelligent, to take the disloyal as the loyal, to take the unfaithful as the faithful.
Praise |
I suspect it was...the old story of the implacable necessity of a man having honour within his own natural spirit. A man cannot live and temper his mettle without such honour. There is deep in him a sense of the heroic quest; and our modern way of life, with its emphasis on security, its distrust of the unknown and its elevation of abstract collective values has repressed the heroic impulse to a degree that may produce the most dangerous consequences.
Abstract | Distrust | Impulse | Man | Mettle | Necessity | Sense | Story | Temper | Old |
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition.
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley
Our opinions are less important than the spirit and temper with which they possess us, and even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in a broad, intelligent, and spacious way.
A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.
Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
What is there so fearful as the expectation of evil tidings delayed? ... Misery is a more welcome visitant when she comes in her darkest guise and wraps us in perpetual black, for then the heart no longer sickens with disappointed hope.
Evil | Expectation | Heart | Expectation |
Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
Religion represents a bond (Bindung) of man to god. It consists in reverent aw of supernatural might (Macht), to which human life is subordinated [?] and which has in its power (Gewalt) our wellfare and misery (Wohl und Wehe). To remain in permanent contact with this might and keep it all the time inclined to oneself, is the unending effort and the highest goal of believing man. Because only [?] in such a way can one feel himself safe before expected and unexpected dangers, which threaten one in his life, and can take part in the highest happiness – inner psychical peace – which can be attained only [?] by means of strong bond to god and unconditional trust to his omnipotence and willingness to help. As far as here the religion originates in the consciousness of individual man.
Consciousness | Effort | God | Individual | Life | Life | Man | Means | Omnipotence | Peace | Power | Religion | Safe | Time | Trust | God | Happiness |
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Trust God completely and He will solve all your difficulties. Faithfully leave everything to Him and He will see to everything. Love God sincerely and He will reveal Himself to you. I am never silent. I speak eternally. The voice that is heard deep within the soul is My voice...the voice of inspiration, of intuition, of guidance. To those who are receptive to this voice, I speak. Everything is Mine except for Myself; Myself is for those who love Me. I am the Ancient One, The Highest of the High. Love Me; Love Me; Love Me; and you will find Me. This is Truth but intellect cannot grasp it, wisdom cannot weigh it, space cannot hold it, time cannot check it, angels cannot fathom it, but human beings can realize it through love, the Divine Love, the Love for the Almighty, except whom, nothing is. If you have rock-like faith in God and flame-like love for Him, nothing in this world will affect you. Misery will not trouble you, flattery will not touch you, happiness will not humour you. Such faith and love will cause you to rise above the imaginary phenomenon and make you understand that God alone is real. Trust God completely and He will solve all your difficulties. Faithfully leave everything to Him and He will see to everything. Love God sincerely and He will reveal Himself to you. This love needs no ceremonies and show. Your heart must love so that even your mind is not aware of it. Let nothing shake your faith in Me, and all your bindings will be shaken off. Once you open your wings to fly, you must fly straight like the swan. Do not flit from tree to tree like the sparrow, or many things will distract you.
Cause | Faith | Flattery | God | Heart | Love | Mind | Nothing | Soul | Space | Time | Truth | Will | Trouble | God | Happiness | Intellect | Understand |