This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Programmes of a political nature are important and products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outside from there.
Character | Heart | Important | Individual | Nature | Right | Work | World |
In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.
Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL
If you lend a person any money, it becomes lost for any purpose as one’s own. When you ask for it back again, you may find a friend made an enemy by your kindness. If you begin to press still further, either you must part with that which you have intrusted, or else you must lose that friend.
Character | Enemy | Friend | Kindness | Money | Purpose | Purpose |
Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence, born Frederick Lawrence
If I were asked to sum up in a single phrase the main purpose of individual life I would express it as the enlargement of personality. Unless an individual can transcend the limits of class, sex, race, age and creed, his personality remains of necessity to that extent incomplete.
Age | Character | Creed | Individual | Life | Life | Necessity | Personality | Purpose | Purpose | Race | Wisdom |
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Business | Character | Conduct | Conscience | Death | Heart | Little | Principles | Will | Business |
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Business | Character | Conscience | Distress | Heart | Little | Love | Man | Principles | Reflection | Smile | Strength | Will | Business |
Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart of life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
Character | Duty | Eternal | Good | Grace | Heart | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Right | Soul | Truth |
Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL
Home is where the heart is.
The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship. If we are not to go to pieces or wither away, we all must have some purpose in life; for no man can live for himself alone.
Character | Devotion | Life | Life | Man | Need | Purpose | Purpose |
The purpose of serving God... is to promote man's perfection.
Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
Character | Duty | Eternal | Good | Grace | Heart | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Right | Soul | Truth |
Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul; so only can you be true to God.
Character | Conscience | God | Heart | Individual | Mind | Respect | Self | Soul |