This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.
Charity | Circumstances | Hope | Means | Power | Virtue | Virtue |
Because anarchism is in its essence an anti-dogmatic and unstructured cluster of related attitudes, which does not depend for its existence on any enduring organization, it can flourish when circumstances are favourable and then, like a desert plant, lie dormant for seasons and even for years, waiting for the rains that will make it burgeon. Unlike an ordinary political faith, in which the church-party becomes the vehicle of the dogma, it does not need a movement to carry it forward.
Circumstances | Existence | Need | Waiting | Will |
Given ample time and rather simple circumstances not likely to be unique in the universe, there does seem to be considerable probability , perhaps even inevitability, in the progress from dissociated atoms to macromolecules. The further organization of those molecules into cellular life would seem, on the face of it, to have a far different, very much lower order of probability. It is not impossible, because we know it did happen at least once.
Circumstances | Life | Life | Order | Organization | Progress | Time | Unique |
H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.
Circumstances | Education | Race | Truth | Learn |
Harold Kushner, fully Harold Samuel Kushner
The circumstances of your life have uniquely qualified you to make a contribution. And if you don't make that contribution, nobody else can make it.
Circumstances | Life | Life |
Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your own profession. Do not indulge yourselves to judge of things by the first glimpse, or a short and superficial view of them; for this will fill the mind with errors and prejudices, and give it a wrong turn and ill habit of thinking, and make much work for retraction.
We feel God present in nature, whether in its awe or its beauty; and in human history, whether in its justice or its weird mysteriousness; and in the life of a good man, or the circumstances of a generous or noble act. Most of all we feel Him near when conscience, His inward messenger, speaks plainly and decisively to us.
Awe | Circumstances | God | Good | Justice | Life | Life | Present | God |
Never under any circumstances say that meditation and wisdom are different; they are one unity, not two things. Meditation itself is the substance of wisdom; wisdom itself is the function of meditation.
Circumstances | Meditation | Wisdom |
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
This world is so full of care and sorrow that it is a gracious debt we owe to one another to discover the bright crystals of delight hidden in somber circumstances and irksome tasks.
Care | Circumstances | Debt | Sorrow | World |
In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act.
Circumstances | Men | Reflection | Thought | Thought |
Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.
Character | Circumstances | Indispensable | Life | Life | Thought | Time | Will | Thought |
The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Ability | Better | Birth | Circumstances | Land | Life | Life | Man | Opportunity | Order | Woman |
Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.
Circumstances | Good |
Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.
Age | Circumstances | History |
In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment.
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
When we aren’t alert, we miss opportunities to improve ourselves. We should always watch for circumstances or situations that can help or harm us and be eager to learn from these encounters.
Circumstances | Harm | Learn |
Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
Circumstances | Opinion | Time | Truth | Will |
Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.
Circumstances | Danger | Government | Question | Reason | Regulation | Will | Government | Danger | Think |
Joseph Farrell, fully Joseph Patrick Farrell
We are odd compounds full of explosive material to which circumstances may at any time apply a spark, with results undreamed of even by those who thought they knew us best.
Circumstances | Thought | Time | Thought |