This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
He who remains cheerful in spirit and sees only the good side of all things, who never allows himself to be spiritually downcast but keeps his head high and courage in his heart, he sets in motion those fine, still powers, which make every step through life The more one loves the nearer he approaches to God, for God is the spirit of infinite love.
Courage | God | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Spirit | Wisdom | God |
A corporation cannot blush. It is a body, it is true; has certainly a head - a new one every year; arms it has and very long ones, for it can reach at anything... a throat to swallow the rights of the community, and a stomach to digest them! But who ever yet discovered, in the anatomy of any corporation, either bowels or a heart?
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, and the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, and the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest, and the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, and the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, and the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue, and a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
An error is more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.
Every author, indeed, who really influences the mind, who plants in it thoughts an sentiments which take root and grow, communicates his character. Error and immorality - two words for one thing, for error is the immorality of the intellect, and immorality the error of the heart - these escape from him if they are in him, and pass into the recipient mind through subtle avenues invisible to consciousness.
Character | Consciousness | Error | Heart | Mind | Wisdom | Words |
Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson
The great error of the doctrines on the spirit has been the idea that by isolating the spiritual life from all the rest, by suspending it in space as high as possible above the earth, they were placing it beyond attack, as if they were not thereby simply exposing it to be taken as an effect of mirage!
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
My austerities, fastings, and prayers, are, I know, of no value if I rely upon them for reforming me. But they have an inestimable value if they represent, as I hope they do, the yearnings of a soul striving to lay his weary head in the lap of his maker.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Why worry one’s head over a thing that is inevitable? Why die before one’s death?
Death | Inevitable | Worry |
Any manifest error on the part of an enemy should make us suspect some stratagem.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Creation is not an instantaneous act, but is an eternal process. The immanence of God which follows from this hypothesis is the pledge that evil and error, ugliness and imperfection are not ultimate. Evil has reference to the distance which good has to traverse. Error is the stage on the pathway to truth.
Error | Eternal | Evil | God | Good | Hypothesis | Imperfection | Truth | God |
Humility is the most excellent natural cure for anger in the world, for he, that by daily considering his own infirmities and failings, makes the error of his servant or neighbor to be his own case, and remembers that he daily needs God’s pardon and his brother’s charity, will not be apt to rage at the levities, or misfortunes, or indiscretions of another.
Anger | Charity | Error | God | Humility | Pardon | Rage | Will | World |
We should not feel that something else gives life meaning, even some transcendental purpose… The religious aspect of life needs to be re-conceptualized to avoid the error of turning life into only a means to Heaven, Nirvana, or union with God.
Error | God | Heaven | Life | Life | Meaning | Means | Purpose | Purpose |
Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action. Now because action is always a decisive factor, something really good can result from an active error, because the effect of all that has been done reaches out into infinity. So although creative action is certainly always best, destroying what has been done is also not without happy consequence.
Action | Error | Good | Happy | Life | Life | Power | Truth |