This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
Brevity is the charm of eloquence.
Brevity |
The true source of cheerfulness is benevolence. The pursuits of mankind are commonly frigid and contemptible, and the mistake comes, at last, to be detected. But virtue is a charm that never fades. The soul that perceptually overflows with kindness and sympathy will always be cheerful.
Benevolence | Cheerfulness | Kindness | Mankind | Mistake | Soul | Sympathy | Virtue | Virtue | Will |
Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow
Progress has never been a bargain; you've got to pay for it. You can have a telephone, but you'll have to give up privacy and the charm of distance. You may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline.
There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.
Ravi Zacharias, fully Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias
Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing.
Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.
You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty.
Danger | Good | Little | Need | Power | Will | Talent | Danger |
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty.
Defects | Father | Intelligence | Love | Ugly | Child | Friends |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
The passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever?
Wife |
Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
Object |
The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya, aka Rabi'a of Basra or Basri, Saint Rabia of Basra
With my Beloved I alone have been, When secrets tenderer than evening airs Passed, and the Vision blest Was granted to my prayers, That crowned me, else obscure, with endless fame; The while amazed between His Beauty and His Majesty I stood in silent ecstasy Revealing that which o'er my spirit went and came. Lo, in His face commingled Is every charm and grace; The whole of Beauty singled Into a perfect face Beholding Him would cry, 'There is no God but He, and He is the most High.'
Randolph Bourne, fully Randolph Silliman Bourne
Good talk is like good scenery - continuous, yet constantly varying, and full of the charm of novelty and surprise.
During the fifties, for example, the American character appeared with some consistency that became a model of manhood adopted by many men: the Fifties male. He got to work early, labored responsibly, supported his wife and children and admired discipline. Reagan is a sort of mummified version of this dogged type. This sort of man didn't see women's souls well, but he appreciated their bodies; and his view of culture and America's part in it was boyish and optimistic. Many of his qualities were strong and positive, but underneath the charm and bluff there was, and there remains, much isolation, deprivation, and passivity. Unless he has an enemy, he isn't sure that he is alive. The Fifties man was supposed to like football, be aggressive, stick up for the United States, never cry, and always provide.... During the sixties, another sort of man appeared. The waste and violence of the Vietnam war made men question whether they knew what an adult male really was. If manhood meant Vietnam, did they want any part of it? Meanwhile, the feminist movement encouraged men to actually look at women, forcing them to become conscious of concerns and sufferings that the Fifties male labored to avoid.
Character | Children | Consistency | Culture | Man | Men | Model | Qualities | Question | War | Waste | Wife | Work |