This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are different kinds of curiosity - one of interest, which causes us to learn that which would be useful to us, and the other of pride which springs from desire to know that of which others are ignorant.
Before we passionately desire anything which another enjoys, we should examine into the happiness of its possessor.
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.
The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
Consideration | Desire | Doctrine | Humanity | Justice | Law | Public |
Generally we praise only to be praised... Refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so.
It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.
Desire |
To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but is own talents.
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
Freedom is obtained not by the enjoyment of what is desired but by controlling desire itself.
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
Desire |
The Occasion of the imagined Difficulty in conceiving disinterested Desires, has probably been from the attempting to define this simple Idea, Desire. It is called an uneasy Sensation in the absence of Good. Whereas Desire is as distinct from any Sensation, as the Will is from the Understanding or Senses. This every one must acknowledge, who speaks of desiring to remove Uneasiness or Pain.
Absence | Desire | Difficulty | Good | Pain | Understanding | Will |
Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall. But in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
Angels | Charity | Danger | Desire | Error | Excess | Knowledge | Man | Power | Virtue | Virtue | Danger |
The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater our desire to be like others.
Desire |