This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Every man bears something within him that, if it were publicly announced, would excite feelings of aversion.
J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte
What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it. A person indolent by nature or dulled and distorted by mental servitude, learned luxury, and vanity will never raise himself to the level of idealism.
Character | Idealism | Luxury | Man | Nature | Philosophy | Servitude | Soul | System | Will |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Our best hope for the future is that the intellect - the scientific spirit, reason - should in time establish a dictatorship over the human mind. The very nature of reason is a guarantee that it would not fail to concede to human emotions, and to all that is determined by them, the position to which they are entitled. But the common pressure exercised by such a domination of reason would prove to be the strongest unifying force among men, and would prepare the way for further unifications. Whatever, like the ban laid upon thought by religion, opposes such a development is a danger for the future of mankind.
Character | Danger | Emotions | Force | Future | Guarantee | Hope | Mankind | Men | Mind | Nature | Position | Reason | Religion | Spirit | Thought | Time | Danger | Intellect | Thought |
Stephen Grellet, born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier
No man was ever so much deceived by another, as by himself.
Continual success in obtaining those things which a man form time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call felicity; I mean the felicity of this life. For there is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.
Character | Desire | Fear | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mind | Sense | Success | Time | Tranquility |
Jose ben Halafta, or Rabbi Yose ben Halafta, aka Rabbi Yossi
One pang of conscience is worth more than many lashes.
Character | Conscience | Worth |
I know it sounds strange, but it is true. In the difficult deaths dying patients grasp onto your hand - as if by sheer grip they could hold on to life. I try to tell them whatever I can, to comfort them and say it will be all right. But in the easy deaths it’s the other way around - the dying man or woman will reach out and take your hand. They are trying to comfort you.
Character | Comfort | Life | Life | Man | Right | Will | Woman |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
Religion presents few difficulties to the humble; many to the proud; insuperable ones to the vain.
He who fears to venture as far as his heart urges and his reason permits, is a coward; he who ventures further than he intended to go, is a slave.
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
The faculty of self-help is that which distinguished man from animals; that it is the Godlike element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of his constitution.
Nothing so uncertain as general reputation. A man injures me from humor, passion, or interest; hates me because he has injured me; and speaks ill of me because he hates me.
Matthew Henson. fully Matthew Alexander "Matt" Henson
There can be no conquest to the man who dwells in the narrow and small environment of a groveling life, and there can be no vision to the man the horizon of whose vision is limited by the bounds of self. But the great things of the world, the great accomplishments of the world, have been achieved by men who had high ideals and who have received great visions. The path is not easy, the climbing is rugged and hard, but the glory at the end is worthwhile.
Character | Conquest | Glory | Ideals | Life | Life | Man | Men | Self | Vision | World |
David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker
All times are great exactly in proportion as men feel, profoundly, their indebtedness to something or other... A feeling of immeasurable obligation puts life into a man and fight into him, and joy into him.
God’s love is the reason for our creation, a free, gratuitous love, a love without limits... Our duty is to translate this love into acts of solidarity and commitment.