This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also of all progress in individuals and in nations.
Character | Discontent | Nations | Progress |
Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, is the best gift of heaven; a happiness that, even above the smiles and frowns of fate, exalts great Nature’s favorites; a wealth that ne’er encumbers, nor can be transferr’d.
Beauty | Character | Fate | Heaven | Nature | Soul | Strength | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth | Beauty | Happiness |
Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.
Arrogance | Character | Prosperity | Receive | Wealth |
Desire for knowledge is the path of honor: desire for wealth is the path of dishonor. Wealth is the chain that slaves wear; knowledge the kingly crown.
Character | Desire | Dishonor | Honor | Knowledge | Wealth |
There can be no progress - real, moral progress - except in the individual and by the individual himself.
Character | Individual | Progress | Wisdom |
If you do not rise early, you can make progress in nothing.
Tolerance does not mark the progress of religion. It is the fatal sign of its decline.
The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms.
Character | Judgment | Life | Life | Men | Opinion | Power | Progress | Property | Society | World |
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 |
Truth travels down from the heights of philosophy to the humblest walks of lie, and up from the simplest perceptions of an awakened intellect to the discoveries which almost change the face of the world. At every stage of its progress it is genial, luminous, creative.
Change | Character | Philosophy | Progress | Truth | World | Intellect |
From its first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization; wealth and again wealth and once more wealth, wealth, not of society, but of the single scurvy individual - here was its one and final aim.
Character | Civilization | Day | Greed | Individual | Society | Spirit | Wealth |