This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Affection, like melancholy, magnifies trifles; but the magnifying of the one is like looking through a telescope at heavenly objects; that of the other, like enlarging monsters with a microscope.
Character | Melancholy | Trifles | Wisdom |
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
When we try to avoid one fault, we are led to the opposite, unless we be very careful.
Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos
A dimension is missing from ourselves and our culture which is reflected in our inability to reconcile the competing demands of our inner and outer lives. As a result, most of us make use of a very small portion of our possible consciousness and of our soul’s resources... The destiny of mankind depends on something as personal and intimate as the way each one of us chooses to live, think and behave.
Character | Consciousness | Culture | Destiny | Mankind | Soul | Think |
Inspiration and genius - one and the same.
Character | Genius | Inspiration | Wisdom |
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Character | Circumstances | Nothing |
The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of deformity of vice, and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one and embrace the other. But is this ever to be expected from inferences and conclusions of the understanding, which of themselves have no hold of the affections, or set in motion the active powers of men? They discover truths: but where the truths which they discover are indifferent, and beget no desire or aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behavior.
Beauty | Behavior | Character | Conduct | Desire | Duty | Influence | Men | Teach | Understanding | Virtue | Virtue | Beauty | Truths |
The human species... capacity for good is infinite, since they can, they desire, make room within themselves for divine Reality. But at the same time their capacity for evil is, not indeed infinite (since evil is always ultimately self-destructive and therefore temporary), but uniquely great. Hell is total separation from God, and the devil is the will to that separation... To be diabolic on the grand scale, one must, like Milton’s Satan, exhibit in a high degree all the moral virtues, except only charity and wisdom.
Capacity | Character | Charity | Desire | Devil | Evil | God | Good | Hell | Reality | Satan | Self | Time | Will | Wisdom |
The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rousing this spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press; by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.
Ambition | Character | Defense | Dread | Freedom | Genius | Learning | Liberty | Nothing | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Wit | Ambition |
The greater part of mankind are naturally apt to be affirmative and dogmatical in their opinions; and while they see objects only on one side, and have no idea of any counterpoising argument, they throw themselves precipitately into the principles, to which they are inclined; nor have they any indulgence for those who entertain opposite sentiments. To hesitate or balance perplexes their understanding, checks their passion, and suspends their action.
Action | Argument | Balance | Character | Indulgence | Mankind | Passion | Principles | Understanding |
Immortality is participation in the eternal now of the divine Ground: survival is persistence in one of the forms of time. Immortality is the result of total deliverance.
Character | Eternal | Immortality | Persistence | Survival | Time |
So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
Character | Courage | Enough | Experiment | Faith | Generosity | Man | Mistake | Service |
Your true nature is not lost in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It was never born and can never die. It shines through the whole universe, filling emptiness, one with emptiness. It is without time or space, and has no passions, actions, ignorance, or knowledge. In it there are no things, no people, and no Buddhas; it contains not the smallest hairbreadth of anything that exists objectively; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, radiant beauty: absolute reality, self-existent and uncreated. How then can you doubt that the Buddha has no mouth to speak with and nothing to teach, or that the truth is learned without learning, for who is there to learn? It is a jewel beyond all price.
Absolute | Beauty | Character | Delusion | Doubt | Enlightenment | Ignorance | Knowledge | Learning | Nature | Nothing | People | Price | Reality | Self | Space | Teach | Time | Truth | Universe |
The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.
Character | Charity | Eternity | Grace | Present | Soul | Time |
Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos
Consumption, celebrity and the quest for perfection in this world are all subject to the law of diminishing returns: each successive acquisition and achievement will mean less than the one before. Diminishing returns are finally leading to diminished expectations about the promise of finding happiness without caring for our souls. Perhaps we are now ready to reject the hucksters of materialisms that have lured us down so many dead ends, and start again on the road that will lead us back to God.
Achievement | Character | Ends | God | Law | Perfection | Promise | Will | World | Happiness |
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
Human happiness seems to consists in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition.
Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost. Idleness will be shut out at every avenue, and with her that numerous body of vices that make up her train.
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
Character | Indecision | Nothing |