This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Most of us believe that the freedom and power of adulthood is our due, but we have little taste for adult responsibility and self-discipline.
Discipline | Freedom | Little | Power | Responsibility | Self | Taste |
The most difficult secret for a man to keep is the opinion he has of himself.
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
We must not reject a proven doctrine because it is opposed to some isolated opinion of this or that great authority... No man must surrender his private judgment. The eyes are directed forwards, not backwards.
Authority | Doctrine | Judgment | Man | Opinion | Surrender |
Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then be fairly inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.
Age | Character | Education | Family | Manners | Men | Opinion | Society | Society |
Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.
The amount of effort put into a campaign by a worker expands in proportion to the personal benefits that he will derive from his party's victory.
[Rakove’s Law of Principle and Politics] The citizen is influenced by principle in direct proportion to this distance from the political situation.
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Our wisdom does not increase nearly at the same rate or proportion to the increase in our power.
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway… You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.
Adventure | Beauty | Challenge | Duty | Good | Happy | Life | Life | Luck | Opportunity | People | Play | Promise | Serenity | Sorrow | Struggle | Tragedy | Will | Friends |
The irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred - that supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of passion is reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, is called love.
Beauty | Desire | Enjoyment | Force | Love | Opinion | Passion | Right |
Power to preserve under all circumstances the right, lawful opinion of what is and is not to be feared.
Circumstances | Opinion | Wise |
The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is no assurance of its truth.
Acceptance | Antiquity | Opinion | Truth |
Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors. They taste no real or substantial pleasure; but, resembling so many brutes, with eyes always fixed on the earth, and intent upon their loaden tables, they pamper themselves in luxury and excess.
Day | Earth | Excess | Life | Life | Luxury | Pleasure | Taste | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
My opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
Effort | Good | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Lord | Opinion | Power | Public | Reason | Right | Truth | World | Parent |