This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach
Who is a righteous man and who is an evil man? Many people think a righteous man is one who does not transgress, and the evil person is one who constantly transgresses. But even the very righteous also transgress and even the very wicked perform good deeds. The essential difference between the two is that a righteous person tries to overcome his desires to do wrong and the evil person does not.
Character | Deeds | Evil | Good | Man | People | Wrong | Think |
Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism.
Character | Conservatism | Effort | Men | Success |
No one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please, one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.
Character | Conversation | Will | Wisdom |
There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness, and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.
Bitterness | Character | Pride | Sarcasm | Tenderness |
Lynn Margulis and Carl Lindegren
New ideas have a hard time in science. They tend to be suppressed by arrogance - condemnation by acknowledged leaders in the field... Dogmatism restrains, iconoclasm liberates. Vanity, powermongering, avariciousness, pride, dedication, love, industry, sadism and most other attributes of people apply to science and to scientists as well.
Arrogance | Character | Dedication | Ideas | Industry | Love | People | Pride | Science | Time |
The most infectiously joyous men and women are those who forget themselves in thinking about others and serving others. Happiness comes not by deliberately courting and wooing it but by giving oneself in self-effacing surrender to great values.
Character | Giving | Men | Self | Surrender | Thinking | Happiness |
W. H. Murray, fully William Hutchinson Murray
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Boldness | Chance | Character | Decision | Events | Genius | Ideas | Ignorance | Initiative | Magic | Man | Power | Providence | Respect | Truth | Respect |
William P. Merrill, fully William Pierson Merrill
Respectable men and women content with the good and easy living are missing some of the most important things in life. Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live.
Dreamers and doers - the world, generally divides men into those two general classifications, but the world is often wrong. There are men who win the admiration and respect of their fellowmen. They are the men worth while. Dreaming is just another name for thinking, planning, devising - another way of saying that a man exercises his soul. A steadfast soul, holding steadily to a dream ideal, plus a sturdy will determined to succeed in any venture, can make any dream come true. Use your mind and your will. They work together for you beautifully if you'll only give them a chance.
Admiration | Chance | Character | Man | Men | Mind | Respect | Soul | Thinking | Will | Work | World | Worth | Wrong | Respect |
John T. McNicholas, fully John Timothy McNicholas
The God-given rights of parents are not understood or are ignored by our secularist educators and by many school administrators who, in the delusion of sovereignty, act as though they, not the parents, have complete control of the education of the child.
Character | Control | Delusion | Education | God | Parents | Rights |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Here is a wonder: we have many more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to create it than to understand it. On a certain low level it can be judged by precepts and by art. But the good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason.
Art | Character | Good | Poetry | Reason | Wonder | Understand |
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
Through a fatality inseparable from human nature, moderation in great men is very rare: and as it is always much easier to push on force in the direction in which it moves than to stop its movement, so in the superior class of the people, it is less difficult, perhaps, to find men extremely virtuous, than extremely prudent.
Character | Force | Human nature | Men | Moderation | Nature | People | Moderation |