This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Martin Tupper, fully Martin Farquhar Tupper
Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter. To what shall their rarity be likened? What price shall count their worth? Perfect and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches, no lovely thing on earth can picture all their beauty.
Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES. The beliefs are the direct cause of what we feel and what we do next. They can spell the difference between dejection and giving up, on the one hand, and well-being and constructive action on the other. The first step is to see the connection between adversity, belief, and consequence. The second step is to see how the ABCs operate every day in your own life.
Action | Cause | Day | Dejection | Focus | Giving | Thinking |
Mary Kay Ash, fully Mary Kathlyn Wagner Ash
As my own life has been woven under the tutelage of the master weaver, I have learned many things. But one of the greatest is that you can make giving a way of life! If you do this, first of all, you will find that you will be happier than you could ever have believed or imagined.
Mary Pipher, aka Mary Elizabeth Pipher or Mary Bray Pipher
The fullness of life comes from an identity built on giving and on joy.
Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
But the value of religion exceeds the individual. Not only every man has its own religion but the religion requires its validity for larger community, for nation, race ... Since god reigns equally over all countries of the world, the whole world with all its treasures and horrors is subdued to him ... Therefore the cultivation (Pflege) of religion leads its confessors to an extensive bond and puts them before the task to acquaint (verständigen) themselves mutually about their belief and to give it a common expression. This is, however, attainable only by giving certain outer form to the contents of religion which fits by its illustrative power for this mutual acquaintance. Under the conditions of great diversity of nations and their living conditions it is only natural that those forms are largely different in indiviudal parts of the world and that therefore during the times a very great number of religions has appeared. All the religions have, however, a common natural assumption (nächstliegende Annahme), that god can be imagined as a person (Persönlichkeit), or at least as similar to man ... Every religion has its own mythology and its specific rite ... For formation of religious cult follow from this certain symbols which are suitable to influence imagination of wide circles of people (weiter Kreise im Volke), so that they awaken in them interests in religious questions and enabled them certain understanding of god.
Belief | Cult | Cultivation | Diversity | Giving | God | Imagination | Influence | Man | Nations | People | Power | Race | Religion | Understanding | World | God | Value |
Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
But even if the radiation formula should prove to be absolutely accurate it would after all be only an interpolation formula found by happy guesswork, and would thus leave one rather unsatisfied. I was, therefore, from the day of its origination, occupied with the task of giving it a real physical meaning.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
Love is nothing if it is not spontaneous. It cannot be a conclusion of reasoning. It is not a fruit of the spirit of bargain. If you want to be certain about the object of love before giving your love, it is only a form of calculating selfishness.
Michael Jordan, fully Michael Jeffrey Jordon, aka MJ, Air Jordan and His Airness
Never giving up. Always willing to take the ball at the most critical time, always willing to give up the ball so a teammate could score. Playing (the far less glamorous) aggressive defense. Giving more effort while sick with the flu than most people do on days when they feel their best.
You, my Eternal Friend, witness now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me…May no one be punished because of me. May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me. Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others. Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes. Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harm. Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others, and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way. Let me forgive others, let me forgive myself, but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others. I seek peace, let me BE peace. I seek justice, let me be just. I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind. I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have. I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have. I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me. I seek a world of love, let me be loving beyond all reason, beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is “normal,” beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little. And let me be open and sensitive to all the love that is already coming to me, the love of people I know, the love that is part of the human condition, the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language, music, recipes, technology, literature, religions, agriculture, and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us. Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more explicit way. Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me. And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector. Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me so that I may fully engage in the work of Tikkun – the healing and transformation of the world social and economic order, the planet, and myself.
Acceptance | Awareness | Change | Consequences | Eternal | Evil | Family | Fear | Giving | Guidance | Heart | Love | Past | People | Strength | Suffering | Universe | Will | Witness | Words | Work | World | Guidance | Awareness | Forgive |
The goal of a good society is to structure social relations and institutions so that cooperative and generous impulses are rewarded, while antisocial ones are discouraged. The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment -- or at least much handicap -- to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.
Capitalism | Giving | Good | Little | Love | Punishment | Reward | Society | Society |
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce
Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolving forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them—whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.
From the discovery of that necessity which inevitably reduces man to nothing, we have shifted to the scornful contemplation of that nothing which is existence itself. Fear in the face of the absolute limit of death turns inward in a continuous irony; man disarms it in advance, making it an object of derision by giving it an everyday, tamed form, by constantly renewing it in the spectacle of life, by scattering it throughout the vices, the difficulties, and the absurdities of all men. Death's annihilation is no longer anything because it was already everything, because life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells. The head that will become a skull is already empty.
Absolute | Contemplation | Death | Discovery | Existence | Fear | Giving | Life | Life | Man | Necessity | Nothing | Object | Will | Discovery | Contemplation |
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, born Ludwig Mies
The long path from material through function to creative work has only one goal: to create order out of the desperate confusion of our time. We must have order, allocating to each thing it's proper place and giving to each thing is due according to it's nature.
Mikhail Naimy, also spelled Mikha'il Na'ima
Love is not a virtue. Love is a necessity; more so than bread and water; more so than light and air. Let no one pride himself on loving. But rather breathe in Love and breathe it out just as unconsciously and freely as you breathe in the air and breathe it out. For Love needs no one to exalt it. Love will exalt the heart that it finds worthy of itself. Seek no rewards for Love. Love is reward sufficient unto Love, as Hate is punishment sufficient unto Hate. Nor keep any accounts with Love. For Love accounts to no one but itself. Love neither lends nor borrows; Love neither buys nor sells; but when it gives, it gives its all; and when it takes, it takes its all. Its very taking is a giving. Its very giving is a taking. Therefore is it the same to-day, tomorrow and forevermore.
Giving | Hate | Heart | Light | Love | Pride | Punishment | Reward | Tomorrow | Will |
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?
Mother Jones, referring to Mary Harris Jones
In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is taken from the breaker, his girl from the mill. Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands.
Cause | Children | Future | Giving | Good | Leisure | Understanding | Wealth | World |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That's why true love is never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange.