This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.
Better | Character | Idleness | Ignorance | Knowledge | Men | Nothing | Study |
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to remount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.
Character | Knowledge | Principles |
Recreation is not being idle; it is easing the wearied part by change of occupation. To re-create strength, rest. To re-create mind, repose. To re-create cheerfulness, hope in God, or change the object of attention to one more elevated and worthy of thought.
Attention | Change | Character | Cheerfulness | God | Hope | Mind | Object | Occupation | Recreation | Repose | Rest | Strength | Thought |
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.
Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
To attain excellence in society, an assemblage of qualification is requisite: disciplined intellect, to think clearly, and to clothe thought with propriety and elegance; knowledge of human nature, to suit subject to character; true politeness, to prevent giving pain; a deep sense of morality, to preserve the dignity of speech; and a spirit of benevolence, to neutralize its asperities, and sanctify its powers.
Benevolence | Character | Dignity | Elegance | Excellence | Giving | Human nature | Knowledge | Morality | Nature | Pain | Sense | Society | Speech | Spirit | Thought | Excellence | Think | Thought |
One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live with able men, and to suffer all those pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge always inflicts.
Character | Inferiority | Knowledge | Men | Study |
He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain a very poor creature, for riches are no proof of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glowworm's light reveals the grub.
Attention | Character | Light | Logic | Man | Riches | Worth | Riches |
John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury
Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality and aimed at goodness more than greatness.
Character | Greatness | Knowledge | Man | Morality | Practice | Time | Wisdom |