This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Calamity is man’s true touchstone." - Joseph Fletcher, fully Joseph Francis Fletcher
"Calamity and Prosperity are the Touchstones of Integrity." - Benjamin Franklin
"Wise men do not wait till the calamity is upon them." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL
"Be patient in little things. Learn to bear the every-day trials and annoyances of life quietly and calmly, and then, when unforeseen trouble or calamity comes, your strength will not forsake you. There is much difference between genuine patience and sullen endurance, as between the smile of love, and the malicious gnashing of the teeth." - William Swan Plumer
"In calamity any rumor is believed." - Publius Syrus
"Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid." - Publius Syrus
"The wickedness of the few is the calamity of the many." - Publius Syrus
"To have been happy adds to calamity." - Beaumont and Fletcher, Francis Beaumont (c.1585-1614) and John Fletcher
"He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in the soil with strong mixture of troubles." - Harry Emerson Fosdick
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. " - Thomas Paine
"It is not every calamity that is a curse, and early adversity is often a blessing. Surmounted difficulties not only teach, but hearten us in our future struggles." - Hasdai Ibn Shaprut
"Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything." - Sydney Smith
"Life, not death, is man's misfortune. It is death which gives liberty to the soul and permits it to depart to its own pure abode, there to be free from all calamity." - Eleazar ben Ya'ir
"More hearts pine away in secret anguish for unkindness from those who should be their comforters than for any other calamity in life." - Edward Young
"The greatest calamity that befalls the heedless is that they are ignorant of their own faults: for anyone who is ignorant here shall also be ignorant hereafter." - Al-Hujwiri, fully Abul Hassan Ali Ibn Usman al-Jullabi al-Hajvery al-Ghaznawi NULL
"When you find wealth within your reach, do not try to get it by improper means; when you meet with calamity, do not (try to) escape from it by improper means. Do not seek for victory in small contentions; do not seek for more than your proper share. Do not positively affirm what you have doubts about; and (when you have no doubts) do not let what you say appear (simply) as your own view." - Book of Li, aka Book of Rites or Record of Rites or Classic Rites NULL
"Calamity is virtue’s opportunity." - Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca or Lucius Annaeus Seneca NULL
"Times of great calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm." - Charles Caleb Colton
"The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Public calamity is a mighty leveler." - Edmund Burke
"Society considers the sex experiences of a man as attributes of his general development, while similar experiences in the life of a woman are looked upon as a terrible calamity, a loss of honor and of all that is good an noble in a human being." - Emma Goldman
"A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people." - Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
"Calamity and happiness in all cases are men's own seeking." - Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
"And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"No man has a prosperity so high or firm, but that two or three words can dishearten it; and there is no calamity which right words will not begin to redress." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves." - William Davenant, fully Sir William Davenant, also spelled D'Avenant
"Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity; and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt
"Calamity is the Touchstone of a brave Mind." - Thomas Fuller
"Prosperity and Vanity are often lodg'd together. Prosperity destroys Fools, endangers the Wise, Prosperity has every Thing cheap. Prosperity knows not the worth of Patience. Prosperity takes no Counsel, and fears no Calamity. Prosperous Men seldom mend their Faults." - Thomas Fuller
"To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?" -
"Calamity is man's true touchstone." - Beaumont and Fletcher, Francis Beaumont (c.1585-1614) and John Fletcher
"When men are unhappy, they do not imagine they can ever cease to be so; and when some calamity has fallen on them, they do not see how they can get rid of it. Nevertheless, both arrive; and the gods have ordered it so, in the end men seek it from the gods." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"There is no calamity like ignorance." - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
"We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us. " - John Lancaster Spalding
"Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations." - Kofi Annan, fully Kofi Atta Annan
"There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness." - Eldridge Cleaver, fully Leroy Eldridge Cleaver
"It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions." - Robert Bly
"The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
"When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson