This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What institution of government could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these.
Government | Mankind | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Government | Happiness |
Trust frees you to see the wisdom of the moment. The goodness of life is invincible, and in Justice is your assurance of success. The laws of consciousness work consistently for your highest good. They offer you consolation and guidance. You now embody the choice to earn your goal, which is at hand.
Choice | Consciousness | Consolation | Good | Guidance | Justice | Life | Life | Success | Trust | Wisdom | Work |
Experience: The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Acquaintance | Experience | Folly | Wisdom | Old |
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precaution for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust... The most effectual one is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.
Good | Men | People | Public | Responsibility | Society | Trust | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom |
Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideals is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path of wisdom is a liberal education.
Better | Books | Censor | Education | History | Ideals | Ideas | Wisdom |
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.
Good | Men | Public | Society | Trust | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
More wisdom is latent in things-as-they-are than in all the words men use.
Some of the virtues are intellectual and others moral, philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in speaking about a man’s character we do not say that he is wise or has understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we praise the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of states of mind we call those which merit praise virtues.
Character | Good | Man | Merit | Mind | Praise | Respect | Understanding | Wisdom | Wise | Respect |