This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Alexandre Vinet, fully Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet
Religion finds the love of happiness and the principles of duty separated in us; and its mission - its masterpiece is, to reunite them.
Character | Duty | Love | Mission | Principles | Religion | Happiness |
Thomas Arnold, aka Thomas "Tom" Arnold the Younger
All calm inquiry conducted among those who have their main principles of judgment in common, leads, if not to an approximation of views, yet, at least, to an increase of sympathy.
Inquiry | Judgment | Principles | Sympathy | Wisdom |
If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon bronze, time will efface it; if we build temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, if we imbue them with just principles of action, with fear of wrong and love of right, we engrave on those tables something which no time can obliterate, and which will brighten and brighten through all eternity.
Action | Character | Eternity | Fear | Love | Principles | Right | Time | Will | Work | Wrong |
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Successful parenthood is built on three great principles which cut deep into the foundations of a structure, support and stimulate the right formation of habit in the building of life. They are love, discipline, and security. Without all these, a child's life is stunted from the very beginning.
Beginning | Discipline | Habit | Life | Life | Love | Principles | Right | Security | Wisdom |
Most of the troubles of humanity are imaginary and should be laughed out of court. It is folly to cross a bridge until you come to it, or to bid the Devil good-morning until you meet him - perfect folly. All is well until the stroke falls, and even then, nine times out of ten, it is not so bad as anticipated. A wise man is the confirmed optimist.
Devil | Folly | Good | Humanity | Man | Troubles | Wisdom | Wise |
Carry religious principles into common life, and common life will lose its transitoriness. The world passes away. The things are seen as temporal. Soon business, with all its cares and anxieties, the whole “unprofitable stir and fever of the world” will be to us a thing of the past. But religion does something better than sigh and moan over the perishableness of earthly things. It finds in them the seeds of immortality.
Better | Business | Immortality | Life | Life | Past | Principles | Religion | Will | Wisdom | World |
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, 1st Baron Burghley, also Lord William Cecil Burleigh
Trust not any man with thy life, credit, or estate. For it is mere folly for a man to enthrall himself to his friend, as though, occasion being offered, he should not dare to become an enemy.
Credit | Enemy | Folly | Friend | Life | Life | Man | Trust | Wisdom |
Not a tenth of us who are in business are doing as well as we could if we merely followed the principles that were known to our grandfathers.
Business | Principles | Wisdom | Business |
Retribution is one of the grand principles in the divine administration of human affairs; a requital is imperceptible only to the willfully unobservant. There is everywhere the working of the everlasting law of requital; man always gets as he gives.
Administration | Law | Man | Principles | Wisdom |
François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
If I were asked what single qualification was necessary for one who has the care of children, I should say patience - patience with their tempers, with their understandings, with their progress. It is not brilliant parts or great acquirements which are necessary for teachers, but patience to go over first principles again and again; steadily to add a little every day; never to be irritated by willful or accidental hindrance.
Care | Children | Day | Little | Patience | Principles | Progress | Wisdom |
Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of ascent, was adjustable on principles of the common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.
Authority | Capacity | Civilization | Culture | Government | Man | Mankind | Morality | People | Principles | Progress | Reason | Redemption | Security | Society | Title | Wisdom |
Those who are versed in the history of their country, in the history of the human race, must know that rigorous state prosecutions have always preceded the era of convulsion; and this era, I fear, will be accelerated by the folly and madness of our rulers. If the people are discontented, the proper mode of quieting their discontent is, not by instituting rigorous and sanguinary prosecutions, but by redressing their wrongs and conciliating their affections. Courts of justice, indeed, may be called in to the aid of ministerial vengeance; but if once the purity of their proceedings is suspected, they will cease to be objects of reverence to the nation; they will degenerate into empty and expensive pageantry, and become the partial instruments of vexatious oppression. Whatever may become of me, my principles will last forever. Individuals may perish; but truth is eternal. The rude blasts of tyranny may blow from every quarter; but freedom is that hardy plant which will survive the tempest and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil.
Aid | Discontent | Era | Eternal | Folly | Freedom | History | Madness | People | Principles | Purity | Reverence | Truth | Tyranny | Will | Wisdom |
A good character is, in all cases, the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents; it is not created by external advantages; it is no necessary appendage of birth; wealth, talents, or station; but it is the results of one's good principles manifested in a course of virtuous and honorable action.
Action | Birth | Character | Good | Parents | Principles | Wealth | Wisdom |