This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Graceful, particularly in youth, is the tear of sympathy, and the heart that melts at the tale of woe; we should not permit ease and indulgence to contract our affections, and wrap us up in selfish enjoyment. But we should accustom ourselves to think of the distresses of human life, of the solitary cottage, the dying parent, and the weeping orphan. Nor ought we ever to sport with pain and distress in any of our amusements, or treat even the meanest insect with wanton cruelty.
Amusements | Character | Cruelty | Distress | Enjoyment | Heart | Indulgence | Life | Life | Pain | Sympathy | Woe | Youth | Think |
Nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the injury and molestation of our fellow-creatures than the indulgence of an ill temper.
Character | Charity | Indulgence | Nothing | Temper |
Though a taste of pleasure may quicken the relish of life, an unrestrained indulgence leads to inevitable destruction.
Character | Indulgence | Inevitable | Life | Life | Pleasure | Taste |
The greater part of mankind are naturally apt to be affirmative and dogmatical in their opinions; and while they see objects only on one side, and have no idea of any counterpoising argument, they throw themselves precipitately into the principles, to which they are inclined; nor have they any indulgence for those who entertain opposite sentiments. To hesitate or balance perplexes their understanding, checks their passion, and suspends their action.
Action | Argument | Balance | Character | Indulgence | Mankind | Passion | Principles | Understanding |
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Each age has its own characteristic depravity. Ours is perhaps not pleasure or indulgence or sensuality, but rather a dissolute pantheistic contempt for the individual man.
Age | Character | Contempt | Individual | Indulgence | Man | Pleasure | Sensuality |
Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL
Rare indulgence produces greater pleasure.
Character | Indulgence | Pleasure |
Temperance and labor are the two best physicians; the one sharpens the appetite - the other prevents indulgence to excess.
Appetite | Character | Excess | Indulgence | Labor |
Madame Roland, Jeanne Manon Philon, born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon
What indulgence does the world extend to those evil-speakers who, under the mask of friendship, stab indiscriminately with the keen, though rusty blade of slander!
Character | Evil | Indulgence | Slander | World |
Study is the bane of boyhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of manhood, and restorative of old age.
William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa
No man’s spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience’ sake, will prove a cordial for weak and low spirits, far beyond what either indulgence or diversion or company can do for them.
Action | Conscience | Desire | Diversion | Duty | Good | Indulgence | Man | Sacrifice | Temptation | Will | Wisdom | Temptation |
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger
If unlimited private indulgence means that there are not enough resources left for national defense or for education or medical care or decent housing or intelligent community planning, then in a sane society private indulgence can no longer be unlimited.
Care | Defense | Education | Enough | Indulgence | Means | Society | Society |
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Grief is the agony of an instant: the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
Agony | Grief | Indulgence | Life | Life |
No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
Indulgence | Nature | Passion | Selfishness |
The point of practicing an art is less to discover who you are than to become your truth, to be able to shed all sham, imposture and bluff in relation to yourself and others. True art is not an indulgence of the little self, but a manifestation of the Self.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Good-breeding is the result of much good sense, some good-nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them.
Good | Indulgence | Little | Nature | Self | Self-denial | Sense |
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
There is no living in the world without a complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses, and innocent, though ridiculous, vanities.
Indulgence | People | World |
The feeling that "I am enough" does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to grow to. It means I accept myself. It means I am not on trial in my own eyes. It means I value and respect myself. This is not an act of indulgence but of courage.
Courage | Enough | Indulgence | Means | Nothing | Respect | Respect | Trial | Value |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The soul’s hunger can never be appeased by indulgence of the senses.
Hunger | Indulgence | Soul |