This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Even while we mourn the death of a loved one, there is room in our hearts for thankfulness for that life… Sober reflection can also lead us to a more sympathetic appreciation of the vital role death plays in the economy of life. Life’s significant and zest issue from our awareness of its transiency, its “fragile contingency.” The urge to create, the passion to perfect, the will to heal and cure – all the noblest of human enterprises grow in the soil of human mortality.
Appreciation | Awareness | Death | Life | Life | Mourn | Passion | Reflection | Thankfulness | Will | Appreciation | Awareness |
Where sorrow is concerned, not repression but expression is the wholesome discipline.
Discipline | Sorrow |
Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
Resentment is the refusal, out of fear, to cross the bridge of sadness and let ourselves back into the impermanent world of relationship.
Fear | Relationship | Resentment | Sadness | World |
William P. Montague, fully William Pepperell Montague
Atheism leads not to badness but only to an incurable sadness and loneliness.
Atheism | Loneliness | Sadness |
A single word of gratefulness can transform a moment of sorrow into a moment of peace.
Your words are the seed, your soul is the farmer, the world is your field; let the farmer look to the sowing, that the soil may abundance yield.
Gratefulness arises naturally from this fertile balance of honoring both our sorrow and our joy. We name our sorrows so that we can bring care and attention to our wounds, so that we may heal. And at the same time we give thanks for the innumerable gifts and blessings bestowed upon us daily, lest we forget how rich we are.
Attention | Balance | Blessings | Care | Joy | Sorrow | Time |
The sum of total worldly possessions is nothing but sorrow and evil.
Evil | Nothing | Possessions | Sorrow |
A good man never dies - in worthy deed and prayer and helpful hands, and honest eyes, if smiles or tears be there; who lives for you and me - live for the world he tries to help - he lives eternally. A good man never dies. Who lives bravely take his share of toil and stress and, for his weaker fellows’ sake, makes every burden less - he may, at last, seem worn - lie fallen - hands and eyes folded - yet, though we mourn and mourn, a good man never dies.
Vivekananda, fully Sri or Swami Vivekananda, born Narendra Nath Datta NULL
I do not believe in a religion that cannot wipe out the widow’s tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan’s mouth.
Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility.
Adversity | Body | Darkness | Heart | Humility | Judgment | Life | Life | Light | Prosperity | Speech |
Laughter spreads ripples on the surface; tears come from the inside.
All acts of charity or giving are valuable only inasmuch as they recognize the true dignity of those toward whom the contribution is directed. Any money or time given to another without recognizing their full equality, is as chaff in the wind, and serves only the mockery of the ego. Pity or sorrow is never a worthy reason for charity, for it only reinforces the bondage of the giver and the recipient. Real charity is never a giving, but always a sharing. He who gives as a giver remains half; he who shares, knows wholeness.
Charity | Dignity | Ego | Equality | Giving | Mockery | Money | Pity | Reason | Sorrow | Time | Wholeness |