This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Every man has a certain sphere of discretion, which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbors. This right flows from the very nature of man. First, all men are fallible: no man can be justified in setting up his judgment as a standard for others. We have no infallible judge of controversies; each man in his own apprehension is right in his decisions; and we can find no satisfactory mode of adjusting their jarring pretensions. If everyone be desirous of imposing his sense upon others, it will at last come to be a controversy, not of reason, but of force. Secondly, even if we had an in fallible criterion, nothing would be gained, unless it were by all men recognized as such. If I were secured against the possibility of mistake, mischief and not good would accrue, from imposing my infallible truths upon my neighbor, and requiring his submission independently of any conviction I could produce in his understanding. Man is a being who can never be an object of just approbation, any further than he is independent. He must consult his own reason, draw his own conclusions and conscientiously conform himself to his ideas of propriety. Without this, he will be neither active, nor considerate, nor resolute, nor generous.
Appearance | Assertion | Darkness | Destroy | Lesson | Means | Neglect | Nothing | Public | Reason | Security |
Do not borrow, do not lend, because both lent money would already friends, both of them will be lost. Moreover borrowing dulls the sense of prudence. Measure for Measure, Act v, Scene 1
What we did not imagine was a Web of people, but a Web of documents.
Care | Future | Responsibility | World |
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity. Hamlet, Act i, Scene 2
Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
A healthy psychological immune system strikes a balance that allows us to feel good enough to cope with our situation but bad enough to do something about it. We need to be defended -- not defenseless or defensive -- and thus our minds naturally look for the best view of things while simultaneously insisting that those views stick reasonably closely to the facts.
Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
Not to think about the future requires that we convince our frontal lobe to do what it was designed to do, and like a heart that is told not to beat, it naturally resists that suggestion.
Obey this may be right but beware of reverence. Government is nothing but regulated force force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.
The execution of anything considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
Neither philosophy, nor morality, nor politics will ever show like itself till man shall be acknowledged for what he really is, a being capable of rectitude, virtue and benevolence, and who needs not always be led to actions of general utility, by foreign and frivolous considerations.
Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do.
Abstract | Common Sense | Difficulty | Discussion | Duty | Imagination | Pacifism | Rationality | Reason | Sense | Utopia | Think |
But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.
Psychology | Reason |
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
The conqueror is regarded with awe the wise man commands our respect but it is only the benevolent man that wins our affection