This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If by renouncing a lesser happiness one attains to a happiness that is greater, then let the wise pursue that happiness which is greater.
As a solid rock cannot be moved by the wind, the wise are not shaken by praise or blame.
As the prudent vintager eats only ripe grapes, and gathers not those which are green, so the eyes of a wise man rests only upon the virtue of others; whereas the eyes of the fool seeks only to discover in his neighbor vices and defects.
Both the young and the old, both the wise and the foolish, end up in death.
By thoughtfulness, by restraint and self-control, the wise man may make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
The fool who knows he is a fool is already wise; the fool who thinks he is wise is definitely a fool.
Wise |
Wang Fuzhi or Fu-chih or Fuchih, pseudonym Chuanshan, courtesy name Ernong
The wise man does not try to set up detailed systems. One uses what is right for today to govern th eworld of today, but this does not mean that it will be right for a later day.
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 |
It is earnestly desired that each man should be wise enough to govern himself without the intervention of any compulsory restraint; and, since government, even in its best state, is an evil, the object principally to be aimed at is that we should have as little of it as the general peace of human society permit.
Enough | Evil | Government | Little | Man | Object | Peace | Restraint | Society | Wise | Society | Govern |
Anna Jameson, fully Anna Brownell Jameson
The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
Competition | Man | Wise |
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the pubic interests… Call them… Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or whatever name you please, they are the same parties still, and pursue the same object.
Confidence | Distrust | Fear | Men | Object | People | Safe | Wise |
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
Good | Government | Improvement | Industry | Labor | Men | Wise |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt makes you ravenous for more knowledge. You can’t get full eating this way. The wise person dines on something more subtle: he eats the understanding that the named was born from the unnamed, that all being flows from non-being, that the describable world emanates from an indescribable source. He finds this subtle truth inside his own self, and becomes completely content.
Doubt | Knowledge | Self | Truth | Understanding | Wise | World |
Prayer is likely to be undervalued by all but wise people because it is silent and so secret. We are often deceived into thinking that noise is more important than silence. War sounds far more important than the noisesless growing of a crop of what, yet the silent wheat feeds millions, while war destroys them. Nobody but God knows how often prayers have changed the course of history... The highest communion is not asking God for things for ourselves, but letting Him flow down through us, out over the world - in endless benediction.
God | History | Important | Noise | People | Prayer | Silence | Thinking | War | Wise | World | God |