This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We never know the love of our parents for us till we have become parents.
That kind of discipline whose pungent severity is in the manifestations of paternal love, compassion, and tenderness is the most sure of its object.
Compassion | Discipline | Love | Object | Tenderness |
Forgiveness is one of the least understood of all spiritual practices. It has nothing to do with condoning poor behavior in ourselves and others. Rather, it calls us to responsibility. In forgiving ourselves, we make the journey from guilt for what we have done (or not done) to celebration of what we become.
Behavior | Forgiveness | Guilt | Journey | Nothing | Responsibility |
He who loves discipline loves knowledge; stupid is the person who hates correction.
Discipline | Knowledge |
The end... of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection.
Faith | God | Grace | Knowledge | Learning | Love | Parents | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | God |
A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself, seconded by the applauses of the public. A man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.
Behavior | Care | Conduct | Heart | Man | Mind | Opinion | Public | World |
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it.
Discipline | Mind |
My parents never bound us to any church but taught us that the love of goodness was the love of God, the cheerful doing of duty made life happy, and that the love of one’s neighbor in its widest sense was the best help for oneself. Their lives showed us how lovely this simple faith was, how much honor, gratitude and affection it brought them, and what a sweet memory they left behind.
Church | Duty | Faith | God | Gratitude | Happy | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Parents | Sense |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
The time and the quality of the time that their parents devote to them indicate to children the degree to which they are valued by their parents.
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is “faithful in that which is least” is dependable in all the world.
Amusements | Conscience | Discipline | Good | Manners | Nothing | Trifles | Work | World |
Just because a child’s parents are poor or uneducated is no reason to deprive the child of basic human rights to health care, education, proper nutrition. Clearly we ignore the needs of black children, poor children, and handicapped children in the country.
Care | Children | Education | Health | Parents | Reason | Rights | Child |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
A person who eats sweet food to gratify his desires even though the food will be dangerous to his health is equal to an animal. This is not the behavior of an intelligent person.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
But repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. They become rigid and defensive, and their self stops growing. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed, and still kept within the bounds of reason. If a person learns to control his instinctual desires, not because he has to, but because he wants to, he can enjoy himself without becoming addicted.
Control | Discipline | Fear | Life | Life | Necessity | People | Reason | Self | Virtue | Virtue | Wants |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one's life without knowing where it really leads - such is the behavior of the multitude.
Behavior | Knowing | Life | Life | Understanding |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all one’s life without knowing where it really leads – such is the behavior of the multitude.
Behavior | Knowing | Life | Life | Understanding |