This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." - Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.
"Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive." - Napoleon Hill
"I am told that nothing that we do on earth, and nothing that we make on earth, is in as great abundance as force. We now have 30,000 pounds of destructive force, TNT equivalent, available for every human being on earth. We don't have 30,000 pounds of food or medicine or art or books or any of the things that ennoble life, but we have 30,000 pounds of instant force for every human being on earth." - Norman Cousins
"The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth." - Norman Cousins
"We are wide-eyed in contemplating the possibility that life may exist elsewhere in the universe, but we wear blinders when contemplating the possibilities of life on earth." - Norman Cousins
"Life seems to me like a Japanese picture which our imagination does not allow to end with the margin. We aim at the infinite and when our arrow falls to earth it is in flames." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"All fortune belongs to him who has a contented mind. Is not the whole earth covered with leather for him whose feet are encased in shoes?" - Panchatantra or The Panchatantra NULL
"The whole of man’s life on the face of Earth can be summed up by that search for his Soul Mate. He may pretend to be running after wisdom, money, or power, but none of that matter. Whatever he achieves will be incomplete if he fails to find his Soul Mate." - Paulo Coelho
"He gave man speech, and speech created thought, which is the measure of the universe; and science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind poured itself forth in all-prophetic song; and music lifted up the listening spirit until it walked, except from mortal care, Godlike, o’er the clear billows of sweet sound." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"If each of us can believe that he is working so that the Universe may be raised, in him and through him, to a higher level, then a new spring of energy will well forth in the heart of Earth's workers. The whole organism, overcoming a momentary hesitation, will draw its breath and press on with strength renewed." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"All the gold on earth and beneath the earth is not worth so much as virtue." - Plato NULL
"Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors. They taste no real or substantial pleasure; but, resembling so many brutes, with eyes always fixed on the earth, and intent upon their loaden tables, they pamper themselves in luxury and excess." - Plato NULL
"All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves; as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince." - Plato NULL
"Evils... can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the Gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the earthly nature and this mortal sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise." - Plato NULL
"Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heaven and on earth; and he who would be blessed and happy should be fro the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible, for then he an be trusted; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood and he who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool." - Plato NULL
"Truth is the beginning of every good thing both in Heaven and on earth; and he who would be blessed and happy should be from the first a partaker of the truth, for then he can be trusted." - Plato NULL
"The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment." -
"A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the motion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary, but everything hath affinities infinite." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The earth is a machine which yields almost gratuitous service to every application of intellect. Every plant is a manufacturer of soil. In the stomach of the plant development begins. The tree can draw on the whole air, the whole earth, on all the rolling main. The plant is all suction-pipe, imbibing from the ground by its root, from the air by its leaves, with all its might." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The greatest and supreme and the most comprehensive community is that which is composed of men and God, and that from God have descended the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all beings which are generated on the earth and are produced... why should not such a man call himself a citizen of the world?" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What a strange power there is in silence! How many resolutions are formed, how many sublime conquests effected, during that pause when lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her! They are the strong ones of earth who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and grief unto them, and who gives time to their own souls to wax strong against temptation." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
"It is eternity now. I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as the butterfly floats in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come, it is now. Now is the eternity; now is the immortal life. Here this moment, by this tumulus, on earth, now; I exist in it." - Richard Jefferies, fully John Richard Jefferies
"If there is a hell upon earth it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart." - Robert Burton
"Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. ‘Give me a place to stand,’ said Archimedes, ‘and I will move the world.’ These men moved the world, and so can we all." - Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
"Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. (also attributed to Marian Wright Edelman)" - Shirley Chisholm
"He who needs have company must needs have sometimes bad company. Be able to be alone; lose not the advantage of solitude and the society of thyself; nor be only content but delight to be alone and single with Omnipotency. He who is thus prepared, the day is not uneasy, nor the night black to him. Darkness may bound his eyes, not his imagination. In his bed he may lie, like Pompey and his sons, in all quarters of the earth; may speculate the universe, and enjoy the whole world in the hermitage of himself." -
"That realization of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing we can hold onto, perhaps our only lasting possession. It is like the sky, or the earth. No matter how much everything around us may change or collapse, they endure." - Sogyal Rinpoche
"The purpose of life on earth is to achieve union with our fundamental, enlightened nature. The “task” for which the “king” has sent us into this strange, dark country is realize and embody our true being." - Sogyal Rinpoche
"Of evils current upon earth, the worst is money. It is money that sacks cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home; warps and seduces native innocence, and breeds a habit of dishonesty." - Sophocles NULL
"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. We started and know the place for the first time. Through the unknown remembered gate where the earth left to discover is that which was the beginning. At the source of the longest river, the voice of the hidden waterfall and the children in the apple tree. Not known, because not looked for. But heart, half heard in the stillness between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now always a condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything. And all shall beware and all manner of things shall beware when the tongues of flames are enfolded into the crown not of fire, and the fire and the rose are one." - T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot
"No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn’t the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" - Tecumseh, aka Tecumtha or Tekamthi NULL
"No tribe has a right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers… sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" - Tecumseh, aka Tecumtha or Tekamthi NULL
"With ten characteristics was the earth created: wisdom and understanding; knowledge and strength; rebuke and might; righteousness and justice; mercy and compassion." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"We need harmony, we need peace. Peace is based on respect for life, the spirit of reverence for life. Not only do we have to respect the lives of human beings, but we have to respect the lives of animals, vegetables, and minerals. Rocks can be alive. A rock can be destroyed. The earth also. The destruction of our health by pollution of the air and water is linked to the destruction of the minerals. The way we farm, the way we deal with our garbage, all these things are related to each other." - Thich Nhất Hanh
"Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature. Simplicity is in the intention, purity in the affection; simplicity turns to God; purity unites with and enjoys Him." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger or higher or wider, nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and nothing better in heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest except in God, Who is created above all things. " - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"Islam means, in this way, denial of self. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth." - Thomas Carlyle
"He is of the earth, but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and petty his wants and desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims, - with immortal longings, with thoughts which sweep the heavens and wander through eternity. A pigmy standing on the outward crest of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest." - Thomas Carlyle
"Speech that leads not to action, still more that hinders it, is a nuisance on the earth." - Thomas Carlyle
"He knoweth nothing as he ought to know, who thinks he knoweth anything without seeing its place and the manner how it relateth to God, angels and men, and to all the creatures of the earth, heaven and hell, time and eternity." - Thomas Traherne
"Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father’s Palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as Celestial Joys; having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels." - Thomas Traherne
"Man is like an island, a circle within circles. Man is separated from these outer circles by his mind, his beliefs, and the limitations put upon him by a life away from the Earth. The circle of man, the island of self, is the place of logic, the ‘I,’ the ego, and the physical self. That is the island that man has chosen to live within today, and in doing so he has created a prison for himself. The walls of the island prison are thick, made up of doubts, logic and lack of belief. His isolation from his greater circles of self is suffocating and prevents him from seeing life clearly and purely. It is a world of ignorance where the flesh is the only reality, the only god... Beyond man’s island of ego, his prison, lies the world of the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things, the force that is found in all things. It is a world that communicates to all entities of Creation and touches the creator. It is a circle of life that houses all man’s instinct, his deepest memory, his power to control his body and mind, and a bridge that helps man transcend flesh. It is a world that expands man’s universe and helps him to fuse himself to the earth. Most of all, it is a world that brings man to his higher self and to spiritual rapture." - Tom Brown, Jr.
"The true warrior is always the last to pick up the lance or go to battle. His battles are fought with the lance of love and understanding. His enemies are prejudice, greed, and bad medicine, and the biggest battles are always fought within himself. So, do not go out upon the earth to battle unseen demons of the physical world, for your hatred will be like theirs. Instead, go out as a true warrior, with love and understanding." - Tom Brown, Jr.
"Complacency makes one as guilty as those who destroy the Earth." - Tom Brown, Jr.
"If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth, they have not often let their presence be known." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
"The satisfaction with your work, even at its best, will never be complete, since nothing on earth can be perfect. The forward pace of the world which you are pushing will be painfully slow. But what of that: the difference between a hundred and a thousand years is less than you now think. But doing what must be done – that is eternal, even when it walks with poverty." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival. But when nothing is valued for what it is, everything is destined to be wasted. Once the values of things refer only to their future usefulness, then an infinite withdrawal of value from the living present has begun. Nothing (and nobody) can then exist that is not theoretically replaceable by something (or somebody) more valuable. The country that we (or some of us) had thought to make our home becomes instead 'a nation rich in natural resources'; the good bounty of the land begins its mechanical metamorphosis into junk, garbage, silt, poison, and other forms of 'waste.' "The inevitable result of such an economy is that no farm or any other usable property can safely be regarded by anyone as a home, no home is ultimately worthy of our loyalty, nothing is ultimately worth doing, and no place or task or person is worth a lifetime's devotion. 'Waste,' in such an economy, must eventually include several categories of humans--the unborn, the old, 'disinvested' farmers, the unemployed, the 'unemployable.' Indeed, once our homeland, our source, is regarded as a resource, we are all sliding downward toward the ash-heap or the dump." - Wendell Berry
"The art of humility begins with a recognition of our dependence on others and an appreciation of God’s gift of life... He discovers that those of a gentle spirit do have the earth for their possession; that humility opens the gates of the mind and heart so greatness can flow through." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson