This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. Its results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigor, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationships.
Body | Influence | Mind | Prayer | Understanding |
Prayer is not only worship; it is also an invisible emanation of man’s worshipping spirit - the most powerful form of energy that one can generate. The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. It results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigor, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationships. If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered.
Body | Energy | Habit | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Prayer | Spirit | Understanding | Will | Worship |
Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility of bearing, a facial and bodily repose are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fear, his greeds, his blunder. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace.
Consciousness | Demeanor | Fear | Grace | Humility | Journey | Man | Obligation | Prayer | Pride | Repose | Selfishness | Sense | Soul |
The desperate rush to raise standards in schools was not initiated by educators or for educational reasons. Rather, it was mandated by politicians and corporate executives for political reasons…. The effect is to squeeze the intellectual life out of classrooms. Also, it has a disproportionately destructive effect on poor and minority kids, and it drives out some of our best teachers. Schools begin to look like test preparation factories.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, born Anne Spencer Morrow
The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his own vanity. Godlike, he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words.
Words |
Some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in speaking about a man’s character we do not say that he is wise or has understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we praise the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of states of mind we call those which merit praise virtues.
Character | Good | Man | Merit | Mind | Praise | Respect | Understanding | Wisdom | Wise | Respect |
The blind are more understanding than the deaf because hearing exerts a direct influence on the formation of moral character, which is not immediately true of what is seen. The human soul can also become diffused by way of the eye whereas what is heard results in focus and concentration.
Character | Focus | Influence | Soul | Understanding |
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, born Anne Spencer Morrow
The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. God-like, he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis, completely expressible in words.
No man is really honest; none of us is above the influence of gain.
Our whole society is permeated with the influence of status symbols
Reason cannot make us experience love, but it can give us intellectual assurance that love is good.
Experience | Good | Love | Reason |
A.C. Benson, fully Arthur Christopher “A.C.” Benson
Influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and that the best kind of influence belongs to those who do not even know that they possess it.
Our eyes see only by permission of the mind... Truly our minds can be barriers, not because of the knowledge they acquire, but because of the intellectual habit of interpreting the unknown in terms of the known. The spiritual transcendent and the mind not only suffers defeat in trying to interpret it, but also blocks reception of the formless Real
The contemporary divorce between faith and reason is not the result of a contest for power or for intellectual monopoly, but of a progressive estrangement without hostility or drama, and therefore all the more deadly.
Great intellectual gifts mean an activity pre-eminently nervous in its character, and consequently a very high degree of susceptibility to pain in every form.
A person who does not know how to use his mind productively will flee from the state of being alone. But when a person has leaned to think, he will greatly appreciate the moments when he is by himself, for then he will be able to utilize those moments for intellectual and spiritual growth. In fact, moments of solitude serve as tests to a person to clarify how thinking-oriented he really is.
To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, is as essential to all true conversation.
Conversation | Influence | Means |