This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.
In the pursuits of women nothing plays a smaller part than love.
Friends |
We love those who admire us, but not those whom we admire.
Inclination | Love | Preference | Taste | Friends |
It is not enough to have great qualities, we must also have the management of them.
The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.
It is necessary to form a distinct notion of what is meant by the word volition in order to understand the import of the word will; for this last word expresses the power of mind of which volition is the act.
Appearance | Conversation | Genius | Impression | Man | Memory | Observation | Opinion |
Inclination is another word with which will is frequently confounded. Thus, when the apothecary says, in Romeo and Juliet,— “My poverty, but not my will, consents; Take this and drink it off; the work is done.†the word will is plainly used as synonymous with inclination; not in the strict logical sense, as the immediate antecedent of action. It is with the same latitude that the word is used in common conversation, when we think of doing a thing which duty prescribes, against one’s own will; or when we speak of doing a thing willingly or unwillingly.
Acquaintance | Attainment | Books | Correctness | Grace | Language | Lying | Men | Merit | Purity | Reading | Style | Taste | Writing |
When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit.
O, call back yesterday, did time return, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men! To-day, to-day, unhappy day too late, O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.
Attention | Ends | Men | Music | Taste | Truth | Words | Youth | Youth |
When we seek reconciliation with our enemies, it is commonly out of a desire to better our own condition, a being harassed and tired out with a state of war, and a fear of some ill accident which we are willing to prevent.
Desire | Gratitude | Tenderness | Friends |
O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!
Taste |
Our poesy is as a Gum, which oozes From whence 'tis nourish'd: The fire i' the flint Shows not till it be struck; our gentle Flame Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies Each bound it chafes.
Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL
Those who practice only in silence/tranquility, cannot establish their [internal] freedom when entering into activity. When they engage into worldy activities, their usual satori (enlightment) will eventually disappear without any trace."
Opinion |
On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.
Those old ages are like the landscape that shows best in the purple distance, all verdant and smooth, and bathed in mellow light.
Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.
Generosity | Gluttony | Men | Taste | Happiness |