This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Nothing has wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal." - Isaac Barrow
"Through zeal knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow." - Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL
"Moderation, which consists in an indifference about little things, and in a prudent and well-proportioned zeal about things of importance, can proceed from nothing but true knowledge, which has its foundation in self-acquaintance." - William Pitt, Lord Chatham or Lord William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, aka The Elder Pitt and The Great Commander
"At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols." - Aldous Leonard Huxley
"Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory; as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others those attempts which he neglects himself." -
"There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man’s affections center in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it will end." - Richard Mant
"Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the dark." - Joseph Fort Newton
"Zeal is very blind, or badly regulated, when it encroaches upon the rights of others." - Pasquier Quesnel
"Violent zeal for truth has a hundred to one odds to be either petulancy, ambition, or pride." - Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff
"Unless the cause of peace based on law gathers behind it the force and zeal of a religion, it hardly can hope to succeed." - Albert Einstein
"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Zeal and curiosity are the twin scourges of the soul: the latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything; the former prevents our leaving anything in doubt or undecided." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"There is a holy anger, excited by zeal, which moves us to reprove with warmth those whom our mildness failed to correct." - Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, fully Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle or John Baptist de La Salle NULL
"Prayer is not a vain attempt to change God’s will: it is a filial desire to learn God’s will and share it. Prayer is not a substitute for work: it is the secret spring and indispensable ally of all true work – the clarifying of work’s goal, the purifying of its motives, and the renewing of its zeal." - George Arthur Buttrick
"Zeal, not rightly directed, is pernicious; for as it makes a good cause better, so it makes a bad cause worse." - Farmer’s Almanac NULL
"If we have learned anything at all in the two thousand years of Christian history, we should have learned that few things are more dangerous than zeal without knowledge." - Charles W Kegley, Jr.
"If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"One is healthy when one can laugh at the earnestness and zeal with which one has been hypnotized by any single detail of one's life." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Every group stigmatizes anyone who fails in zeal, labor, and sacrifices for group interests." - William Graham Sumner
"Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence or learning." - Frederick William Faber
"Mistrust your zeal for doing good to others." - Abbe Henri Huvelin, curé de Saint Augustin
"Nothing spoils human Nature more than false Zeal." - Benjamin Whichcote
"Not only the zeal of those who seek Him proves God, but also the blindness of those who seek Him not." - Blaise Pascal
"Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work body and soul." - Charles Buxton
"I was greatly influenced by one of my teachers. She had a zeal not so much for perfection as for steady betterment - she demanded not excellence so much as integrity." - Edward R. Murrow, born Egbert Roscoe Murrow
"Zeal without knowledge is the sister of folly." - English Proverbs
"Zeal without prudence is frenzy." - English Proverbs
"The loss of certainty of truth has ended in a new, entirely unprecedented zeal for truthfulness - as though man could afford to be a liar only so long as he was certain of the unchallengable existence of truth and objective reality, which surely would survive and defeat all his lies." - Hannah Arendt
"Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human; the latter is divine." - Hosea Ballou
"Zeal, the blind conductor of the will." - John Dryden
"Zeal and duty... on occasion’s forelock watchful wait." - John Milton
"I would have every zealous man examine his heart thoroughly, and I believe he will often find that what he calls a zeal for his religion is either pride, interest, or ill-repute." - Joseph Addison
"Zeal is a great ease to a malicious man, by making him believe he does God service, whilst he is gratifying the bent of a perverse revengeful temper." - Joseph Addison
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
"Kindness has converted more people than zeal, science, or eloquence." - Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
"We are often moved with passion, and we think it to be zeal." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"Zeal without knowledge is fire without light." - Thomas Fuller
"Zeal is fit only for only wise men, but is found mostly in fools." - Thomas Fuller