This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, aka Beis Halevi
Fear destroys desires... Even a small amount of fear of the Almighty will remove your coveting.
The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.
No perfect thing is too small for eternal recollection.
Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.
Character | Conduct | Conversation | Inclination | Life | Life | Man |
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.
Absolute | Achievement | Justice | Logic | Man | Men | Perfection | Purity | Wisdom |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Do you remember how small grains of sand are? Yet if enough are placed in a ship, they sink it.
Men of splendid talents are generally too quick, too volatile, too adventurous, and too unstable to be much relied on; whereas men of common abilities, in a regular, plodding routine of business, act with more regularity and greater certainty. Men of the best intellectual abilities are apt to strike off suddenly, like the tangent of a circle, and cannot be brought into their orbits by attraction or gravity - they often act with such eccentricity as to be lost in the vortex of their own reveries. Brilliant talents in general are like the ignes fatui; they excite wonder, but often mislead. They are not, however, without their use; like the fire from the flint, once produced, it may be converted, by solid, thinking men, to very salutary and noble purposes.
Business | Character | Eccentricity | Men | Thinking | Wonder |
Alain Pen name of Emile-Auguste Chartier
It is a small thing to accept people for what they are; if we really love them we must want them to be what they are.
We can accomplish almost anything within our ability if we but think we can! Every great achievement in this world was first carefully thought out... Think - but to a purpose. Think constructively. Think as you read. Think as you listen. Think as you travel and eyes reveal new situations. Think as you work daily at your place in life. There can be no advancement or success without serious thought.
Ability | Achievement | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Success | Thought | Wisdom | Work | World | Think | Thought |
Roger Bacon, scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis meaning "Wonderful Teacher"
For there are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely, by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience; since many have the arguments relating to what can be known, but because they lack experience they neglect the arguments, and neither avoid what is harmful nor follow what is good. For if a man who has never seen fire should prove by adequate reasoning that fire burns and injures things and destroys them, his mind would not be satisfied thereby, nor would he avoid fire, until he placed his hand or some combustible substance in the fire, so that he might prove by experience that which reasoning taught. But when he has had actual experience of combustion his mind is made certain and rests in the full light of truth. Therefore reasoning does not suffice, but experience does.
Doubt | Experience | Intuition | Knowledge | Light | Man | Mind | Neglect | Rest | Wisdom |
Joe Bayly, fully Joseph Tate Bayly
In an age of the inconsequential and frivolous, reading fills our minds with the consequential. Reading involves stewardship of a mind, that was created in the divine image, to think great thoughts as well as to notice the small sparrow. Reading stretches the mind.