This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The most effective kind of prayer is that in which we place ourselves, in our hearts, before God, relinquishing all resistance, letting go of all secret irritation, opening ourselvse to the truth, to God’s holy mystery, saying over and over again, “I desire truth, I am ready to receive it, even this truth which causes me such concern, if it be the truth. Give me the light to know it – and to see how it bears on me.”
We have become so preoccupied with power and control over nature that we have lost an important dimension of our being, the disposition of thankfulness, of commemoration, of perceiving and enjoying something for its own sake. Instead of viewing these immediate objects of our environment in terms of their own being, we have come to regard them solely in terms of what they are for us. And to such an exploitative mentality, nature’s own voice becomes mute. Approached as material merely, to be worked up and pressed into the service of a self-styled lord of creation, she contains no revelation and no blessing.
Control | Important | Lord | Nature | Power | Regard | Revelation | Self | Service | Thankfulness |
In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history.
Bible | Civilization | Complacency | God | History | Bible |
Religion declined not because it was refuted but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless.
Authority | Compassion | Creed | Discipline | Faith | Habit | Love | Past | Religion | Worship | Crisis |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
[Groupthink] The dissenter was made to feel at home, providing he lived up to two restrictions: first, that he did not voice his doubts to outsiders and thus play into the hands of the opposition; and second, that he kept his criticisms within the bounds of acceptable deviation, not challenging any of the fundamental assumptions of the group’s prior commitments.
Deviation | Opposition | Play |
The conscience is… a brake, not a guide; a fence, not a way. It raises its voice after a wrong deed has been committed, but often fails to give us direction in advance of our actions.
Conscience | Wrong |
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
Deep down, below the surface of the average man’s conscience, he hears a voice whispering. “There is something not right,” no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code.
Conscience | Man | Opinion | Public | Right |
Immense hidden powers seem to lurk in the unconscious depths of even the most common man - indeed, of all people without exception. It is these powers, when put under pressure, that are responsible for all great creative efforts. The men who make history are those who - consciously or unconsciously - turn the switch on the inner switchboards of human character. Pour out all your fears and anxieties, malicious joy and greed and hatred, and you will be astonished at the terrific amount of power which is pent up in your unconscious mind. We can release this power and transform it from negative into positive power, only by bringing into the open, into the light of consciousness, and by accepting ourselves as we are, even though the mountains of debts seem to crush us. This is the principle of honesty. And it is clear that it can be applied only if connected with the principle of faith.
Character | Consciousness | Faith | Greed | History | Honesty | Joy | Light | Man | Men | Mind | People | Power | Will |
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
Within each one of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from how we see ourselves. When, therefore, we find ourselves in a difficult situation, to which there is no solution, he can sometimes kindle a light that radically alters our attitude, the very attitude that led us into the difficult situation.