This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What is philosophy? To deliberate well in reference to any question that emerges, never to be carried away by impulses, but to ponder over the injuries that result from the passions, and to act rightly as the circumstances demand, practicing moderation.
Character | Circumstances | Moderation | Philosophy | Question |
It could be written, for most of us: due to circumstances within our control.
Character | Circumstances | Control |
He that will do anything for his pleasure, must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it; and these pains, are the natural punishments of those actions, which are the beginning of more harm than good. And hereby it comes to pass that intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness with mischances; injustice with the violence of enemies: Pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; negligent government of princes, with rebellion; and rebellion, with slaughter.
Beginning | Character | Cowardice | Good | Government | Harm | Injustice | Injustice | Intemperance | Oppression | Pleasure | Pride | Rashness | Rebellion | Will | Government |
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
I endeavor to subdue circumstances to myself, and not myself to circumstances.
To this war of every man, against every man, this is also consequent that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice, are none of the faculties neither of the body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his sense, and passions. They are qualities, that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thing distinct; but only that to be every man’s, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it.
Body | Character | Force | Fraud | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Law | Man | Men | Mind | Nothing | Power | Qualities | Right | Sense | Society | Solitude | War | World | Wrong |
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
Misfortunes display the skill of a general, prosperous circumstances conceal his weakness.
Character | Circumstances | Display | Skill | Weakness |
He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances.
Character | Circumstances | Happy | Temper |
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
If you had been looking for happiness in people and events, you discovered that it is not there. If you look to outer circumstances for your satisfaction cues, you will stay on an emotion seesaw... True joy is actually part of your nature... Events merely give us an excuse to feel it.
Character | Circumstances | Events | Joy | Nature | People | Will | Happiness |
It is our daily duty to consider that in all circumstances of life, pleasurable, painful, or otherwise, the conduct of every human being affects, more or less, the happiness of others, especially of those in the same house; and that, as life is made up, for the most part, not of great occasions, but of small everyday moments, it is the giving to those moments their greatest amount of peace, pleasantness, and security, that contributes most to the sum of human good. Be peaceable. Be cheerful. Be true.
Character | Circumstances | Conduct | Duty | Giving | Good | Life | Life | Peace | Security | Happiness |
No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being; that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.
The policy of adapting one’s self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.
Character | Circumstances | Policy | Self |
Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL
If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.
Character | Heart | Injustice | Injustice | Integrity | Patience | Purpose | Purpose |
The hatred of the wicked is only roused the more from the impossibility of finding any just grounds on which it rest; and the very consciousness of their own injustice is only a grievance the more against him who is the object of it.
Character | Consciousness | Impossibility | Injustice | Injustice | Object | Rest |
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
Vice, the opposite of virtue, shows us more clearly what virtue is. Justice becomes more obvious when we have injustice to compare it to. Many such things are proved by their contraries.
Character | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Virtue | Virtue |
Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that, whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn.
Character | Circumstances | Existence | Life | Life | Will | Youth | Youth | Afraid |