This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Saint Bonaventure, born John of Fidanza Bonaventure
To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?
Compassion | Endurance | Faith | Hope | Love | Perseverance | Salvation | Truth | Understanding |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
In what then can you glory? For if you were so subtle and wise that you had all the knowledge and knew how to interpret all tongues and minutely investigate the heavenly bodies, in all these things you could not glory, for one demon knew more about the things of earth than all men together, even if there may have been someone who received from the Lord a special knowledge of the highest wisdom. Likewise, even if you were more handsome and richer than everyone else and even if you performed wonders such as driving out demons, all those things would be an obstacle to you and none of them would belong to you nor could you glory in any of these things.
Compassion | Men | Will |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
What is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean, those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment.
Compassion | Family | Harm | Heart | Mercy | Prayer | Receive | Sorrow | Tears |
Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence.
Compassion | Right |
If the motion of the earth were circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since nothing violent is eternal. It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion.
Compassion | Hope | Meaning | Thinking |
Even if the whole world should rise up to destroy us, nothing will happen except that God, in whom we have put our hope, will allow.
Compassion | Glory | Resignation | Sorrow |
Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.
Compassion | Suffering | World |
The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.
Better | Compassion | Conversation | Listening | Story |
Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.
Compassion | Listening |
As you watch your ill will dispassionately, you’ll discover that, like all feelings, this negative emotion is not as solid as it first appears. Like a wave that rises from the ocean one minute and sinks back into it the next, the ill will rises in your heart, lasts for a short while, and then disappears again. A similar wave may rise up and take its place, but it too will inevitably subside. If you can stand back and simply observe this process (which is similar to the breath-awareness technique that we explain in Chapter 7), your negative feelings will eventually exhaust themselves.
Compassion | Experience | Good | Heart | Mind | Qualities | Suffering |
Of all the schools of Buddhism, Zen (one of the first to gain popularity in the West) has a reputation for questioning traditional religious assumptions — and for good reason. (For more on Zen, check out Chapters 5, 7, and 8.) When the subject is accumulating spiritual merit through pilgrimage or other good works, Zen goes against the traditional grain by teaching that anything short of full enlightenment has only limited value. The following exchange between Bodhidharma, the legendary monk who brought Zen from India to China, and the Chinese emperor is a case in point. Shortly after arriving...
Care | Compassion | Dedication | Love | Teach |
There are two kinds of women: those who marry princes and those who marry frogs. The frogs never become princes, but it is an acknowledged fact that a prince may very well, in the course of an ordinary marriage, gradually, at first almost imperceptibly, turn into a frog. Happy the woman who after twenty-five years still wakes up beside the prince she fell in love with.
Compassion | Light | Need | Nothing | Receive |
The tenets of deep ecology are part of human consciousness by dint of the fact that we evolved, co-evolved with entire biotic communities.
Compassion | Knowledge | Life | Life | Sense | Understanding |
God is a Spirit infinitely happy, therefore we must approach to him with cheerfulness; he is a Spirit of infinite majesty, therefore we must come before him with reverence; he is a Spirit infinitely holy, therefore we must address him with purity; he is a Spirit infinitely glorious, we must therefore acknowledge his excellency in all that we do, and in our measures contribute to his glory, by having the highest aims in his worship; he is a Spirit infinitely provoked by us, therefore we must offer up our worship in the name of a pacifying Mediator and Intercessor.
Age | Church | Compassion | Little | Men | People | Pity | Power | Providence | Security | World |
Theodore Dreiser, fully Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser
The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions — none more so than the most capable.
Children | Compassion | Daughter | Father | Giving | Hope | Judgment | Love | Mother | Pride | Strength | Wants |
By eating meat we share the responsibility of climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian will make a difference in the health of our planet.
Compassion | Energy | Kindness | People | Will |
A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to recover our own sovereignty.
Compassion | Smile |
Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.
Compassion | Kindness |
Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.
Compassion | Global | Intention | Order |