This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Every day we shall see about us evidence of human pettiness, greed, self-centeredness. But if we observe carefully we also see human nobility, generosity, self-surrender and genuine religious conviction and action. The cynic remembers only man’s faults – that is why he remains a cynic. The wise man remembers his brother’s virtues. Which shall we choose to remember?
Action | Cynic | Day | Evidence | Generosity | Greed | Man | Nobility | Self | Surrender | Wise |
The acceptance of our nature - which does not mean compliant acquiescence in faults that we can remedy - is essential for living a meaningful life, and therefore one that is significant as well.
Acceptance | Life | Life | Nature |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
To have faults and not reform them - that may indeed be called having faults.
Reform |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The real fault is to have faults and not to amend them.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
To acknowledge our faults when we are blamed, is modesty; to discover them to one's friends, in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to proclaim them to the world, if one does not take care, is pride.
Care | Confidence | Modesty | Pride | World |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Men's faults are characteristic. It is by observing a man's faults that one may come to know his virtues.
We easily forget our faults when they are known only to us.
If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noticing them in others.
Pleasure |
We have few faults that are not more excusable in themselves than are the means which we use to conceal them.
Means |
We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
We all find in others the faults that are found in ourselves.
We have scarcely any faults which are not more excusable than the means we adopt to conceal them.
Means |
Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to hide them.
If is never too late with us, so long as we are aware of our faults and bear them impatiently.