This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom, another's folly as one beholds the same objects from a higher point. One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in his duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself, which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? The debt of money or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature?
Beauty | Debt | Duty | Folly | Genius | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Man | Mankind | Money | Nature | Thought | Wisdom | Beauty | Thought |
We have among us a class of mammon worshippers, whose one test of conservatism or radicalism is the attitude one takes with respect to accumulated wealth. Whatever tends to preserve the wealth of the wealthy is called conservatism, and whatever favors anything else, no matter what is called socialism.
Conservatism | Radicalism | Respect | Wealth | Respect |
Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL
The possession of virtue… is always abundant for those who desire it, not like the possession of the earthly, in which those who divide it off into pieces for themselves must take their share from that of the other, and the gain of the one is the neighbor’s loss. From this, because of hatred of loss, arise fights concerning wealth. But the wealth of [virtue] is unenvied, and he who [gains] more brings no penalty to him who is worth of also participating equally in it.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
No wealth can surpass contentment.
Contentment | Wealth |
He is richest who is content with the least; for content is the wealth of nature.
Grant to me that I may be made beautiful in my soul within, and that all external possessions be in harmony with my inner man. May I consider the wise man rich and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure.
Adi Shankara, aka Śaṅkara Bhagavatpādācārya and Ādi Śaṅkarācārya
Who, in this world, can be called pure? He whose mind is pure. Who can be called wise? He who can discriminate between the real and the unreal. Who is the greatest hero? The person who is not terror-stricken by the arrows which shoot from the eyes of a beauty. Who is poor? He who is not contented. What rolls quickly away, like drops of water from a lotus leaf? Youth, wealth and the years of a person’s life.
Beauty | Hero | Life | Life | Mind | Terror | Wealth | Wise | World | Youth |
Solomon, fully King Solomon, aka Jedidiah NULL
There is no wealth greater than the health of the body, there is no joy greater than the joy of the heart... A cheerful heart causes man's life to blossom, while the spirit of sadness dries the bones. Never rejoice at other people's misfortunes, for you cannot know when adversity may come to you.
Adversity | Body | Health | Heart | Joy | Life | Life | Man | People | Sadness | Spirit | Wealth |
Theodor Herzl, born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl
The wealth of a country is its working people.
The wealth of man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.
Our works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible precept, Know thyself; till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at.
Folly | Know thyself | Precept | Spirit | Work |
The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance.
Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities owe possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy.
Affectation | Appearance | Distinction | Envy | Folly | Infamy | Passion | Pride | Qualities | Superiority | Think | Vice |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake off. A man cannot gradually enlarge his mind as he does his house.
Labor | Man | Mind | Power | Prudence | Prudence | Restraint | Wealth |