This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If you would be free from sin, fly temptation: he that does not endeavor to avoid the one cannot expect Providence to protect him from the other. If the first sparks of ill were quenched, there would be no flame, for how can he kill, that dares not be angry; or be an adulterer in act, who does not transgress in thought; or be perjured, that fears an oath; or defraud, that does not allow himself to covet?
Character | Kill | Providence | Sin | Temptation | Thought |
Mankind never loses any good thing, physical, intellectual, or moral, till it finds a better, and then the loss is a gain. No steps backward, is the rule of human history. What is gained by one man is invested in all men, and is a permanent investment for all time.
Better | Character | Good | History | Man | Mankind | Men | Rule | Time | Loss |
One never learns by success. Success is the plateau that one rests upon to take breath and look down from upon the straight and difficult path, but one does not climb upon a plateau.
Jianzhi Sengcan, Third Patriarch of Zen, Third Patriarch of Ch'an
The Perfect Way knows no difficulties, except that it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from hate and love does it reveal itself fully and without disguise. A tenth of an inch’s difference, and heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see it before your own eyes have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. To set up what you like against what you dislike - this is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of the Way is not understood. Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose... Pursue not the outer entanglements, dwell not in the inner void; be serene in the oneness of things, and dualism vanishes of itself... Transformations going on in the empty world that confronts us appear to be real because of Ignorance. Do not strive to seek after the True, only cease to cherish opinions... One in all, All in One - if only this is realized, no more worry about not being perfect. When the mind and each believing mind and Mind, this is where words fail, for it is not of the past, present or future.
Character | Disease | Disguise | Earth | Future | Hate | Heaven | Ignorance | Love | Meaning | Mind | Oneness | Past | Peace | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Words | World | Worry |
Leo Pinsker, aka Yehudah Leib Pinsker, Lev Semyonovich Pinsker
The one thing most alien to men - humanity.
A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury; for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.
Jacob Potofsky, fully Jacob Samuel Potofsky
A gifted leader is one who is capable of touching your heart.
A great man is one who has conquered himself. He has brought order, discipline and meaning into his life and prevented it from becoming the aimless, self-centered, repulsive existence to which he is drawn by his inherited weaknesses. The process begins when a man brings a center of interest into his life. This interest must be something inspiring and elevating. If you push these requirements far enough, the center of his life can only be God.
Character | Discipline | Enough | Existence | God | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Order | Self |
Prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same. Prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.
No one keeps up his enthusiasm automatically. Enthusiasm must be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, new efforts, new vision. It is one's own fault if his enthusiasm is gone; he has failed to feed it. If you want to turn hours into minutes, renew your enthusiasm.
Character | Enthusiasm | Fault | Vision | Fault |