This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgement if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree?
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
The passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace … Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever?
Wife |
Otto von Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg
Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Making others happy, through kindness of speech and sincerity of right advice, is a sign of true greatness. To hurt another soul by sarcastic words, looks, or suggestions, is despicable. Sarcasm draws out the rebellious spirit and anger in the wrongdoer. Loving suggestions bring out the repentence in him. Repentence consists in thoroughly understanding one's own error and in abandoning it. Friendship is pure by nature. When you have a lilly in your hands, how can you crush it? When you love a person dearly, how can you hurt him, even though he may be wrong? Divine love is unlimited and infinite. When two or more persons are friends always, no matter what happens, that is an expression of divine love, of divine friendship.
Anger | Error | Kindness | Love | Right | Sarcasm | Sincerity | Soul | Speech | Spirit | Understanding | Friendship | Friends |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Sarcasm draws out the rebellious spirit and anger in the wrongdoer. Loving suggestions bring out the repentence in him. Repentence consists in thoroughly understanding one’s own error and in abandoning it. Friendship is pure by nature. When you have a lilly in your hands, how can you crush it? When you love a person dearly, how can you hurt him, even though he may be wrong? Divine love is unlimited and infinite. When two or more persons are friends always, no matter what happens, that is an expression of divine love, of divine friendship.
Anger | Error | Love | Spirit | Understanding | Friendship | Friends |
Peter Medawar, fully Sir Peter Brian Medawar
The scientific method is a potentiation of common sense, exercised with a specially firm determination not to persist in error if any exertion of hand or mind can deliver us from it. Like other exploratory processes, it can be resolved into a dialogue between fact and fancy, the actual and the possible; between what could be true and what is in fact the case. The purpose of scientific enquiry is not to compile an inventory of factual information, nor to build up a totalitarian world picture of Natural Laws in which every event that is not compulsory is forbidden. We should think of it rather as a logically articulated structure of justifiable beliefs about nature. It begins as a story about a Possible World—a story which we invent and criticise and modify as we go along, so that it ends by being, as nearly as we can make it, a story about real life.
Determination | Ends | Error | Method | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Story | World | Think |
The truth is perilous never to the true, nor knowledge to the wise; and to the fool, and to the false, error and truth alike, error is worse than ignorance.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Honest error is to be pitied not ridiculed.
Error |
Wrapt up in error is the human mind, and human bliss is ever insecure; Know we what fortune yet remains behind? Know we how long the present shall endure?
Pietro Metastasio, aka Metastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi
O, how full of error is the judgment of mankind. They wonder at results when they are ignorant of the reasons. They call it fortune when they know not the cause, and thus worship their own ignorance changed into a deity.
Pietro Metastasio, aka Metastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi
How full of error is the judgment of mankind! They wonder at results when they are ignorant of the reasons.
People do not reach the truth in all its aspects, and will not fall into the error in all its aspects.