This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Alain de Lille (or Alanus ab Insulis)
A wise man reflects before he speaks. A fool speaks, and then reflects on what he has uttered.
Knowledge is acquired by study and observation, but wisdom cometh by opportunity of leisure; the ripest thought comes from the mind which is not always on the stretch, but fed, at times, by a wise passiveness.
Knowledge | Leisure | Mind | Observation | Opportunity | Study | Thought | Wisdom | Wise | Thought |
He who would be the tongue of this wide land must string his harp with chords of study iron and strike it with a toil-imbrowned hand.
The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.
Good | Indispensable | Opposition | Reason | Will | Wisdom | Wise |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
We want to live our lives as wise warriors and die as men. We may not even know what it is until the moments of our deaths. Then, the questions come. Have we worked to release another soul from pain? Have we opened a way that was once closed? Have we learned from the steeps and dips? Then we can rest assured that we have lived as men and died as warriors.
A man should never be assumed foolish till he has proved himself foolish - this we owe him. A man should never be assumed wise till he has proved himself wise - this we owe to ourselves.
Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL
No one is wise at all times.
Silence is the highest wisdom of a fool as speech is the greatest trial of a wise man. If thou wouldst be known as wise, let thy words show thee so; if thou doubt thy words, let thy silence feign thee so. It is not a greater point of wisdom to discover knowledge than to hide ignorance.
Doubt | Ignorance | Knowledge | Man | Silence | Speech | Wisdom | Wise | Words | Trial |
Herbert Read, fully Sir Herbert Edward Read
Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency.
If thy words be too luxuriant, confine them, lest they confine thee. He that thinks he can never speak enough, may easily speak too much. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.