This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Contentment furnishes constant joy. Much covetousness, constant grief. To the contented, even poverty is joy. To the discontented, even wealth is a vexation.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
All honorable means of safeguarding ourselves from evils are not only permitted but laudable. And constancy’s part is played principally in bearing troubles patiently where there is no remedy.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The poverty of goods is easily cured; the poverty of the soul is irreparable.
Avarice is as destitute of what it has, as poverty of what it has not.
More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, responsible.
Character | Means | Relationship |
Education means drawing forth from the mind latent powers and developing them, so that in mature years one may apply these powers not merely to success in one's occupation, but to success in the greatest of all arts - the art of living.
Art | Character | Education | Means | Mind | Occupation | Success | Wisdom | Art |
Knowledge has three degrees: opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition. To the last I subordinate reason. It is absolute knowledge founded on the identity of the mind knowing with the object known.
Absolute | Character | Intuition | Knowing | Knowledge | Means | Mind | Object | Opinion | Reason | Science | Sense |
The essential in this time of moral poverty is to create enthusiasm.
Character | Enthusiasm | Poverty | Time |
Cardinal de Retz, Jean Francois-Paul de Gondil
One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy - which means he often finds the remedy too late.
Character | Fault | Looks | Man | Means | Misfortune | Misfortune |
H. F. Rall, fully Harris Franklin
Freedom means mastery of your world. Fear and greed are common sources of bondage. We are afraid, beset by anxiety. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. We seem so helpless over against the forces that move now without apparent thought for men. And our inner freedom is destroyed by greed. We think that if we only had enough goods we should be free, happy, without care. And so there comes the lust for money, and slavery to the world of things. The world can enslave; it can never make us free.
Anxiety | Anxiety | Care | Character | Enough | Fear | Freedom | Greed | Happy | Lust | Means | Men | Money | Slavery | Thought | Tomorrow | Will | World | Think | Thought |