This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is that fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangement of a boundless Providence.
Character | Human nature | Man | Nature | Prayer | Providence |
Cyril Connolly, fully Cyril Vernon Connolly
The man who is master of his passions is Reason's slave.
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Character | Determination | Education | Genius | Men | Nothing | Persistence | Will | World | Talent |
By moral power we mean the power of a life and a character, the power of good and great purposes, the power which comes at length to reside in a man distinguished in some course of estimable or great conduct. No other power of man compares with this, and there is no individual who may not be measurably invested with it.
Character | Conduct | Good | Individual | Life | Life | Man | Power |
Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré
The only perfection I know of is a hearty love of god, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Charity is the only virtue which rightly unites us to God and man. Such union is our final aim and end, and all the rest is mere delusion.
Character | Charity | Delusion | God | Love | Man | Perfection | Rest | Virtue | Virtue | God |
No man should part with his own individuality and become that of another.
Character | Individuality | Man | Wisdom |
Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski
They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.
Character | Conscience | Man |
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.
Allan Chalmers, fully Allan Knight Chalmers
Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. Your name and your good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.
Character | Deeds | Good | Heaven | Kindness | Love | Mercy | Will | Deeds |
The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.
Character | God | Greatness | Man | Resolution | Right | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |
Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz
All beginnings are difficult, but there is nothing that stands in the way when you have a strong will to accomplish. The essential thing is to be sincerely resolved to be successful.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.
Character | Emotions | People | Practice | Will | Understand |