This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in battle.
Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz
At times, laziness is the root of taking action. When we feel an urge to give in to a desire, we might hear a whisper telling us that something is not right. Laziness, however, prevents us from fighting that desire and we give in to our bad habit.
Action | Character | Desire | Fighting | Habit | Laziness | Right |
Personal magnetism is a mixture of rugged Honesty, pulsating Energy, and self-organized Intelligence. I believe, absolutely, that truth is the strongest and most powerful weapon a man can use, whether he is fighting for a reform or fighting for a sale.
Character | Energy | Fighting | Honesty | Intelligence | Man | Reform | Self | Truth |
French Student Revolt Graffiti NULL
The Revolution must take place in men before it can be manifest in things.
Character | Men | Revolution |
For most Americans the sexual revolution was not a vast national orgy of swingers. There was never widespread approval of adultery or promiscuity. The revolution - evolution is a better word - appeared rather as a massive questioning of the double standard and the sexual constraints we grew up with.
Adultery | Better | Character | Evolution | Promiscuity | Revolution | Approval |
Whether a revolution succeeds or miscarries, men of great hearts will always be its victims.
Character | Men | Revolution | Will |
So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
Character | Courage | Enough | Experiment | Faith | Generosity | Man | Mistake | Service |
We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paving our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly, - the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.
Character | Fighting | Indifference | Life | Life | Poverty | Power | Right | Soul |
The great revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
Change | Character | Discovery | Revolution | Discovery |
Nonresistance isn’t passive. Passivity suggests powerlessness. But non-resistance is extremely powerful. It means we’re consciously choosing what we wish to empower. Nonresistance is the action of wisdom that assesses a situation and realizes there is nothing to be gained from fighting it.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
It was left for the Germans to bring about a revolution of a kind never seen before: [the Nazi] revolution, devoid of ideas... and opposed to everything that is higher, better and decent; opposed to liberty, truth, and justice.
Better | Character | Ideas | Justice | Liberty | Revolution | Truth |
It is not the victory that makes the joy of noble hearts, but the combat.
The man who strives to educate himself - and no one else can educate him - must win a certain victory over his own nature. He must learn to smile at his dear idols, analyze his every prejudice, scrap if necessary his fondest and most consoling belief, question his presuppositions, and take his chances with the truth.
Belief | Character | Man | Nature | Prejudice | Question | Smile | Truth | Learn |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.
Arundell Charles St. John-Mildmay
Reasoning against a prejudice is like fighting against a shadow; it exhausts the reasoner, without visibly affecting the prejudice.