This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Friendship may indeed come to exist without sensuous liking or comradeship to pave the way; but unless intellectual sympathy and moral appreciation are powerful enough to react on natural instinct and to produce in the end the personal affection which at first was wanting, friendship does not arise.
Appreciation | Enough | Instinct | Sympathy | Friendship | Appreciation |
Whenever education and refinement grow away from the common people, they are growing toward selfishness, which is the monster evil of the world. that is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement. Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's refinement.
Cultivation | Education | Evil | God | Life | Life | Men | People | Refinement | Selfishness | Sympathy | Work | World |
Why should men work? Because their hearts want some outlet to give expression to the feeling of earnest sympathy that is in them. Where a man has a strong and large benevolence, he will always be busy, and pleasantly busy.
It is in sickness that we most feel the need of that sympathy which shows how much we are dependent upon one another for our comfort, and even necessities. Thus disease, opening our eyes to the realities of life, is an indirect blessing.
True sympathy is putting ourselves in another’s place; and we are moved in proportion to the reality of our imagination.
Imagination | Reality | Sympathy |
It is in sickness that we most feel the need of that sympathy which shows how much we are dependent one upon another for our comfort, an even necessities. Thus, disease, opening our dyes to the realities of life, is an indirect blessing.
In all human minds, in howsoever widely different proportions, self-regard, and sympathy for others or say extra-regard have place. But, in self-regard even sympathy has its root: and if, in the general tenour of human conduct, self-regard were not prevalent over sympathy - even over sympathy for all others put together, no such species as the human could have existed.
One of the drawbacks of old age is that one outlives his generation and feels alone in the world. The new generations have interests of their own, and are no more in sympathy with you than you are with them. The octogenarian has no alternative but to live in the past. He lives with the dead, and they pull him down.
Life is an island in an ocean of loneliness, an island whose rocks are hopes, whose trees are dreams, whose flowers are solitude, and whose brooks are thirst. Your life, my fellow men, is an island separated from all other islands and regions. No matter how many are the ships that leave your shores for other climes, no matter how many are the fleets that touch your coast, you remain a solitary island, suffering the pangs of loneliness and yearning for happiness. You are unknown to your fellow men and far removed from their sympathy and understanding.
Dreams | Life | Life | Loneliness | Men | Solitude | Suffering | Sympathy | Understanding |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Perfect sympathy cannot spring from the imagination. Only they who have suffered can really sympathize.
Imagination | Sympathy |
Mere knowledge alone will not enable us to solve the profound problems of life... Sympathy is an essential part of a right attitude to the riddles of the universe. You must tune up your heart to catch the music of the spheres.
Heart | Knowledge | Life | Life | Music | Problems | Right | Sympathy | Universe | Will |
The true source of cheerfulness is benevolence. The pursuits of mankind are commonly frigid and contemptible, and the mistake comes, at last, to be detected. But virtue is a charm that never fades. The soul that perceptually overflows with kindness and sympathy will always be cheerful.
Benevolence | Cheerfulness | Kindness | Mankind | Mistake | Soul | Sympathy | Virtue | Virtue | Will |
Susan B. Anthony, fully Susan Brownell Anthony
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
There can be no substitute for elemental virtues... only by each of us steadfastly keeping in mind that there can be no substitute for the world-old commonplace qualities of truth, justice and courage, thrift, industry, common sense and genuine sympathy with the fellow feelings of others.
Common Sense | Courage | Feelings | Industry | Justice | Mind | Qualities | Sense | Sympathy | Thrift | Truth | World |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
I do not believe that any man can lead who does not act… under the impulse of a profound sympathy with those whom he leads.
Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it.
Indifference | Nothing | Sympathy |
C. S. Lewis, fully Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, called "Jack" by his family
When pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
Courage | God | Knowledge | Little | Love | Pain | Sympathy | God |