This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
No virtue can be real that has not been tried.
And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.
Cunning | Justice | Knowledge | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Happiness |
Your destiny shall not be allotted to you, but you shall choose it for yourselves. Let him who draws the first lot be the first to choose a life, which shall be his irrevocably. Virtue owns no master: he who honours her shall have more of her, and he who slights her, less.
If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are all made profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therfore if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?
Folly | Prudence | Prudence | Soul | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
The virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains.
Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a an honors or dishonors her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility of the chooser.
Choice | Destiny | Genius | Life | Life | Responsibility | Virtue | Virtue | Will |
The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.
Enough | Greatness | Perception | Virtue | Virtue |
I am not mortified by our vice, but I own our virtue makes me ashamed.
Ptah-hotep, aka Ptahhotpe or Ptah-Hotep NULL
Vice must be drawn out that virtue may remain.
Pope John XXIII, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli NULL
Even though human beings differe from one another by virtue of their ethnic peculiarities, they all possess certain common elements and are inclined by nature to meet each other in the world of spiritual values.
The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.
Enough | Greatness | Justice | Need | Perception | Plenty | Poverty | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |