This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Aristotle - Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.
Work | Friendship | Friends |
The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent of opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point.
Appetite | Desire | Good | Object | Opinion | Thinking | Thought | Thought |
Those who desire honor from good men, and men who know, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they delight in honor, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the strength of the judgment of those who speak about them.
Desire | Good | Honor | Judgment | Men | Opinion | Strength |
If, then, being is in itself desirable for the supremely happy man (since it is by its nature good and pleasant), and that of his friends very much the same, a friend will be one of the things that are desirable. Now that which is desirable form him must have, or he will be deficient in this respect. The man who is to be happy will therefore need virtuous friends.
Friend | Good | Happy | Man | Nature | Need | Respect | Will | Friends |
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself.
We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us.
Friends |
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds
Aid | Comfort | Deeds | Life | Life | Poverty | Weakness | Friends | Old |
The man with a host of friends who slaps on the back everybody he meets is regarded as the friend of nobody.
I have accustomed myself to receive with respect the opinion of others but always take the responsibility of deciding for myself.
Opinion | Receive | Respect | Responsibility | Respect |
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends?... With friends men are more able both to think and to act.
Men | Need | Office | Opportunity | Power | Prosperity | Thought | Friends | Think | Thought |
The states of virtue by which the soul possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i.e., art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophical wisdom, intuitive wisdom: we do not included judgment and opinion because in these we may be mistaken.
Art | Judgment | Knowledge | Opinion | Soul | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Equality does not seem to take the same form in acts of justice and in friendship; for in acts of justice what is equal in the primary sense is that which is in proportion to merit, while quantitative equality is secondary, but in friendship quantitative equality is primary and proportion to merit secondary.
Equality | Justice | Merit | Sense | Friendship |
Young men have strong passions, and tend to gratify them indiscriminately... They have as yet met with few disappointments. Their lives are mainly spent not in memory but in expectation; for expectation refers to the future, memory to the past, and youth has a long future before it and a short past behind it: on the first day of one’s life one has nothing at all to remember, and can only look forward... They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning; and whereas reasoning leads us to choose what is useful, moral goodness leads us to choose what is noble. They are fonder of their friends, intimates, and companions than older men are, because they like spending their days in the company of others, and have not yet come to value either their friends or anything else by their usefulness to themselves. All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They disobey Chilon’s precept by overdoing everything; they love too much and hate too much, and the same thing with everything else. They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.
Day | Deeds | Expectation | Future | Hate | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Men | Nothing | Past | Precept | Usefulness | Youth | Deeds | Youth | Expectation | Friends | Think | Value |
Hatred increases in proportion to the amount of shared convictions and interests.
If you want to discover your true opinion of anybody, observe the impression made on you by the first sight of a letter from him.
Impression | Opinion |
Truth is most beautiful undraped; and in the impression it makes is deep in proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so partly because it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer’s whole soul, and leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also, because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the arts of rhetoric, but that all the effect of what is said comes from the thing itself.
Impression | Rhetoric | Soul | Thought | Truth |
Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them.
Adversity | Prosperity | Friends |
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
A man’s fate is his own temper; and according to that will be his opinion as to the particular manner in which the course of events is regulated. A consistent man believes in destiny, an capricious man in chance.
Chance | Destiny | Events | Fate | Man | Opinion | Temper | Will | Fate |