This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Out of our beliefs are born deeds. Out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grow our character; and on our character we build our destination.
Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley
The future must have as its basis the consciousness of sanctity in existence – in common things, in the events of human life, in the gradually comprehended interlocking whole revealed to the human desire for knowledge, n the benedictions of beauty and love, in the catharsis, the sacred purging, of the moral drama in which character is pitted against fate and even deepest tragedy may uplift the mind.
Beauty | Character | Consciousness | Desire | Events | Existence | Fate | Future | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Sacred | Tragedy | Fate | Beauty |
William Kilpatrick, fully William Heard Kilpatrick
The core problem facing our schools is a moral one. All the other problems derive from it. Even academic reform depends on putting character first.
A man’s character is determined by how hard he fights for what he believes in.
Thomas Lickona, fully Thomas Edward Lickona
Schools inevitably teach good or bad values in everything they do. Every interaction, whether part of the academic curriculum or the human curriculum of rules, roles, and relationships, has the potential to affect a child’s values and character for good or for ill. The question is not whether to do values education but whether to do it well.
Thomas Lickona, fully Thomas Edward Lickona
Schools cannot be ethical bystanders at a time when our society is in deep moral trouble. Rather, schools must do what they can to contribute to the character of the young and the moral health of the nation.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
There is no better indication of a man’s character than the company which he keeps.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances; and if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
Character | Circumstances | Courage | Fortune | Man | Power |
Thomas Lickona, fully Thomas Edward Lickona
Character so conceived has three interrelated parts: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral behavior. Good character consists of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good – habits of the mind, habits of the heart, and habits of action. When we think about the kind of character we want for our children, it’s clear that we want them to be able to judge what is right, care deeply about what is right, and then do what they believe to be right – even in the face of pressure from without and temptation from within.
Action | Behavior | Care | Character | Children | Good | Heart | Knowing | Mind | Right | Temptation | Temptation | Think |
Richard Livingstone, fully Sir RIchard Winn Livingstone
And neither mind nor character can be made without a spiritual element. This is just the element that has grown weak, where it has not perished, in our education, and therefore in our civilization, with disastrous results.
Character | Civilization | Education | Mind |
John Naber, fully John Phillips Naber
It’s the tough decisions that really test our character, for character is revealed when the price of doing the right thing is more than we want to pay.
Because God is One, all our lives have various and unique places in the harmony of the divine life. And because God attains and wins and finds this uniqueness, all our lives win in our union with him the individuality which is essential to their true meaning.
God | Harmony | Individuality | Life | Life | Meaning | Unique | God |
To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial.
Character | Temptation | Work | World | Worth |