This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you.
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, fully Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton
Live simply that others might simply live.
Faith, then, is a quality of human living. At its best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service; a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen to oneself at the level of immediate event. Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive; and face others with cheerful charity.
Charity | Confidence | Courage | Faith | Joy | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Meaning | Men | Opportunity | Quiet | Serenity | Service | Sorrow | Universe | World |
[Someone said] a man is in fact three men – what he thinks he is – what others think he is – and what he really is. There is, I think, still a fourth identity – what he tries to be. My hunch is that what he tries to be fuses all the others and brings the true portrait of the man into focus.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
A true leader does not seek followers, he wants to teach others how to be leaders. He does not want control, he wants the truth. He does not impose his leadership on others, nor does he take away anyone's autonomy. He inspires by love, not coercion. When it comes time to take credit, he makes himself invisible; but he is the first to arrive at the time of need, and he will never shrink away in fear. He is so passionate about your welfare that when you consult him for guidance, it is like coming face to face with yourself for the first time.
Coercion | Control | Credit | Fear | Guidance | Love | Need | Teach | Time | Truth | Wants | Will | Leader | Leadership |
A Reason, or universal self-consciousness, transcends the awareness of oneself in potential conflict with others, because it consists of awareness of oneself and others as existing in the universal infinite Spirit. Reason sees nature as the expression of the infinite Spirit.
Awareness | Consciousness | Nature | Reason | Self | Spirit | Awareness |
Teresa of Avila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL
A slight failing in one virtue is enough to pull all the others to sleep.
Desmond Tutu, fully Desmond Mpilo Tutu
A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.
Some misfortunes we bring upon ourselves; others are completely beyond our control. But no matter what happens to us, we always have some control over what we do about it.
Control |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means – except by getting off his back.
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
I believe that the true welfare of man lies in the fulfillment of the Will of God; and that His will consists in men loving each other, and therefore behaving toward others as they desire that others should behave with them. I believe that the meaning of life of every man, therefore, lies only in the increase of love in himself; that this increase of love leads the individual man in this life toward greater and greater welfare; that after death it gives the greater welfare the more love there be in the man; and that, at the same time, more than anything else, it contributes to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, i.e., to an order of life where the discord, deceit, and violence which now reign will be replaced by free agreement, truth, and brotherly love between men.
Death | Deceit | Desire | Earth | Fulfillment | God | Individual | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Men | Order | Time | Truth | Will | God |