This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond
Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue. We have seen a thousand people esteemed, either for the merit they had not yet attained or for that they no longer possessed.
Pleasure comes from obtaining what we feel we are lacking. We have the ability to choose our answer to the question, “What am I lacking right now?” Some people answer materialistically. It is wiser to choose to focus on your lack of spiritual accomplishments and then you can derive pleasure from meeting those needs.
Ability | Character | Focus | People | Pleasure | Question | Right |
The dominant vocation of all human beings at all times is living - intellectual and moral growth.
It is a welcome symptom in an age which is commonly denounced as materialistic, that it makes heroes of men whose goals lie wholly in the intellectual and moral sphere. This proves that knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race.
Age | Character | Goals | Human race | Justice | Knowledge | Men | Power | Race | Wealth |
Moral principles that exalt themselves by degrading human nature are in effect committing suicide.
Character | Human nature | Nature | Principles | Suicide |
Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke
Live by admiration rather than disgust. Judge people by their best, not by their worst.
Admiration | Character | People |
e. e. cummings, fully Edward Estlin Cummings
To be nobody-but-myself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
People may change their minds as often as their coats, and new sets of rules of conduct may be written every week, but the fact remains that human nature has not changed and does not change, that inherent human beliefs stay the same; the fundamental rules of human conduct continue to hold.
Change | Character | Conduct | Human nature | Nature | People |
No person sees all of his faults. Every person considers himself righteous an feels whatever he does is correct. For every act a person does, he has a thousand excuses and rationalizations. A person does not see what goes against his prejudices. Other people can be much more objective about you and can find your wrongdoings and faults. Hence, be willing to listen to what an admonisher has to say.
What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
Character | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Organic | Question | Religion | Sense |