This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A moral decision is the loneliest thing that exists. Knowledge is shed abroad everywhere. Anybody may dip his cup into that great sea and take out what he can. It is a public appropriation from a public store. But what the man himself must do as a moral being, what ordering he shall make of his life, what allegiance he shall choose, what cause he shall cleave to - this is decided in that solitude where his soul in authentic presence lives with no other companion than the Final Authority which he recognizes as supreme.
Authority | Cause | Character | Decision | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Public | Solitude | Soul |
Great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most sever bridle of the tongue... Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge checks the dissolution of the tongue.
It is not good to speak of evil of all whom we know bad; it is worse to judge evil of any who may prove good. To speak ill upon knowledge shows a want of charity; to speak ill upon suspicion shows a want of honesty. I will not speak so bad as I know of many; I will not speak worse than I know of any. To know evil of others and not speak it, is sometimes discretion; to speak evils of others and not know it, is always dishonesty. He may be evil himself who speaks good of others upon knowledge, but he can never be good himself who speaks evil of others upon suspicion.
Character | Charity | Discretion | Dishonesty | Evil | Good | Honesty | Knowledge | Suspicion | Will |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
He only can attain to virtue who knows and imitates God - which knowledge and imitation are the only cause of blessedness... for philosophy is directed to the obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed in the enjoyment of God.
Blessedness | Cause | Enjoyment | God | Imitation | Knowledge | Life | Life | Philosophy | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | God | Blessed |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things.
In our thinking we must preserve an open and enquiring mind, an ability to see things through the eyes of our opponents, a skill for understanding the motives and thoughts of those whom we oppose. Yet we must act in the light of the best knowledge and reason available to us at the moment.
Ability | Character | Knowledge | Light | Mind | Motives | Reason | Skill | Thinking | Understanding | Wisdom |