This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The theologian who has no joy in his work is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this science.
All plants, animals, and men are already in eternity, traveling across the face of time. Whence we know not. Whither, who is able to say? Let us have one world at a time, and let us make the journey one of joy to our fellow passengers, and just as convenient and happy for them as we can, and trust the rest as we trust life.
Eternity | Happy | Journey | Joy | Life | Life | Men | Rest | Time | Trust | World |
The joy which is caused by truth and noble thoughts shows itself in the words by which they are expressed.
One man finds in religion his literature and his science, another finds in it his joy and his duty.
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Joy | Pleasure | Understanding |
We are naught but frail atoms in the heavens of the infinite and we cannot but obey and surrender to the will of Providence. If we love, our love is neither from us, nor is it for us. If we rejoice, our joy is not in us, but in Life itself. If we suffer, our pains lies not in our wounds, but in the very heart of Nature.
Heart | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Providence | Surrender | Will |
Life is that which we see and experience through the spirit; but the world around us we come to know through our understanding and reason. And such knowledge brings us great joy or sorrow.
Experience | Joy | Knowledge | Life | Life | Reason | Sorrow | Spirit | Understanding | World |
When either your joy or your sorrow become great the world becomes small.
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Many men fail to realize that joy is distinctly moral. It is a fruit of the spiritual life. We have no more right to pray for joy, if we are not doing the things that Jesus said would bring it, than we would have to ask interest in a savings bank in which we had never deposited money. Joy does not happen. It is a flower that springs from roots. It is the inevitable results of certain lines followed and laws obeyed, and so a matter of character.
Character | Inevitable | Joy | Life | Life | Men | Money | Right |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
A righteous person once asked, “On which day of your life did you experience the greatest amount of joy?” The righteous man replied, “It was the day when I traveled on a ship and someone greatly humiliated me. He treated me with ultimate disgrace. Nevertheless I did not feel even a drop of resentment. I experienced great joy that I reached such a level that no insult could cause me any pain.”
Cause | Day | Disgrace | Experience | Insult | Joy | Life | Life | Man | Pain | Resentment | Insult |
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
There is a spirit in the soul, untouched by time and flesh, flowing from the Spirit, remaining in the Spirit, itself wholly spiritual. In this principle is God, ever verdant, every flowering in all the joy and glory of His actual Self. Sometimes I have called this principle the Tabernacle of the soul, sometimes a spiritual Light, anon I say it is a Spark. But now I say that it is more exalted over this and that than the heavens are exalted above the earth. So now I name it in a nobler fashion... It is free of all names and void of all forms. It is one and simple, as God is one and simple, and no man can in any wise behold it.
Earth | Glory | God | Joy | Light | Man | Self | Soul | Spirit | Time | Wise | God |
Twelve Things to Remember: The value of time. The success of perseverance. The pleasure of working. The dignity of simplicity. The worth of character. The power of kindness. The influence of example. The obligation of duty. The wisdom of economy. The virtue of patience. The improvement of talent. The joy of originating.
Character | Dignity | Duty | Example | Improvement | Influence | Joy | Kindness | Obligation | Patience | Perseverance | Pleasure | Power | Simplicity | Success | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Value |
Work has to include our deepest values and passions and feelings and commitments, or it's not work, it's just a job. A job is something to pay our bills with. Work is something that touches our heart and expresses our being. That joy is the key to spirit.
Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Many people may doubt that finding God is the purpose of life; but everyone can accept the idea that the purpose of life is to find happiness. I say that God is Happiness. He is Bliss. He is Love. He is Joy that will never go away from your soul. So why shouldn’t you try to acquire that Happiness? No one else can give it to you. You must continuously cultivate it yourself.
Doubt | God | Joy | Life | Life | Love | People | Purpose | Purpose | Soul | Will | God |
Thus only can you gain the secret isolated joy of the thinker, who knows that, a hundred years after his is dead and forgotten, men who never heard of him will be moving to the measure of his thought - the subtle rapture of a postponed power, which the world knows not because it has no external trappings, but which to his prophetic vision is more real than that which commands an army.
Joy | Men | Power | Thought | Vision | Will | World | Thought |