This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after life.
Cause | Character | Doubt | Harmony | Immortality | Life | Life | Oppression | Order | Soul | World |
All nature is but art, unknown to thee; all chance, direction, which thou canst not see; all discord harmony, not understood; all partial evil, universal good: and, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, one truth is clear, “Whatever is, is Right.”
Art | Chance | Evil | Good | Harmony | Nature | Pride | Reason | Right | Truth | Wisdom |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
In season of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.
Excellence | Men | Peace | Power | Excellence |
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
It is only necessary to make war with five things: with the maladies of the body, the ignorances of the mind, with the passions of the body, with the seditions of the city, and the discord of families.
Gampopa, known as Sonam Rinchen from Gampo or Dagpo Lha-je from Gampo NULL
It is useless to act in discord with the teachings since such "spiritual practice" will cause a rebirth in the lower realms - even if you have entered the gateway to the Dharma.
Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated: the field of politics supplies the alchymists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction. Our age is too enlightened to contend upon topics, which concern only the interests of eternity; and men who hold in proper contempt all controversies about trifles, except such as inflame their own passions, have made it a common-place censure against your ancestors, that their zeal was enkindled by subjects of trivial importance; and that however aggrieved by the intolerance of others, they were alike intolerant themselves.
Age | Censure | Contempt | Cruelty | Intolerance | Mankind | Men | Politics | Weapons | World | Zeal | Cruelty |
Fame, power, and gold, are loved for their own sakes — are worshipped with a blind, habitual idolatry. The pageantry of empire, and the fame of irresistible might, are contemplated by the possessor with unmeaning complacency, without a retrospect to the properties which first made him consider them of value. It is from the cultivation of the most contemptible properties of human nature that discord and torpor and indifference, by which the moral universe is disordered, essentially depend. So long as these are the ties by which human society is connected, let it not be admitted that they are fragile.
Cultivation | Fame | Human nature | Nature | Society | Universe | Society |
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
My life is not this steeply sloping hour, in which you see me hurrying. Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree; I am only one of my many mouths, and at that, the one that will be still the soonest. I am the rest between two notes, which are somehow always in discord because Death
Robert Grosseteste or Grossetete
Command that in no way there be in your household any who make strife, discord or divisions in the hostel, but all shall be of one accord, of one will as of one heart and one soul.
Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL
Covetous of the property of others and prodigal of his own.
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Angels boast ethereal vigor, and are formed from seeds of heavenly birth.
The greatest blunders, like the thickest ropes, are often compounded of a multitude of strands. Take the rope apart, separate it into the small threads that compose it, and you can break them one by one. You think, "That is all there was!" But twist them all together and you have something tremendous.
Nature |
May there be unison in the speech and action of humans. Only by this shall, unity emerge and serve each others’ purpose. The nation shall emerge stronger and mightier because of this.
So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or if a servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so. The king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle, war is his vengeance; so that here men are punished for before-breach of the king's laws in now the king's quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the king's, but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed -- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, he let him outlive that day to see his greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
I do not choose that my grave should be dug while I am still alive.
Good |
These [elements] never cease changing place continually, now being all united by Love into one, now each borne apart by the hatred engendered of Strife, until they are brought together in the unity of the all, and become subject to it.