This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
As for my labors, if they can but wear one impertinence out of human life, destroy a single vice, or give a morning’s cheerfulness to an honest mind - in short, if the world can be but one virtue the better, or in any degree less vicious, or receive from then the smallest addition to their innocent diversions - I shall not think my pains, or indeed my life, to have been spent in vain.
Better | Character | Cheerfulness | Destroy | Impertinence | Life | Life | Mind | Receive | Virtue | Virtue | World | Think |
Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
To be rich in admiration and free from envy; to rejoice greatly in the good of others; to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence; these are the gifts of fortune which money cannot buy and without which money can buy nothing. He who has such a treasury of riches, being happy and valiant himself, in his own nature, will enjoy the universe as if it were his own estate; and help the man to whom he lends a hand to enjoy it with him.
Absence | Admiration | Character | Envy | Fortune | Generosity | Good | Happy | Heart | Love | Man | Money | Nature | Nothing | Riches | Universe | Will |
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
Whatever may happen in the future, I know that I have learned three things which will remain forever convictions of my heart as well as my mind. Life, even the hardest life, is the most beautiful, wonderful and miraculous treasure in the world. Fulfillment of duty is another beautiful thing, making life happy and giving to the soul an unconquerable force to sustain ideals. This is my second conviction, and my third is that cruelty, hatred, and injustice never can and never will be able to create a mental, moral or material millennium.
Character | Convictions | Cruelty | Duty | Force | Fulfillment | Future | Giving | Happy | Heart | Ideals | Injustice | Injustice | Life | Life | Mind | Soul | Will | World |
Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.
Man is a creature who loves to draw lines, but God is the Power that ignores lines and man-made barriers. The more able we are to see some good in everyone and some truth in all beliefs, the closer we shall come to the mind of God.