This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Being alone when one’s belief is firm, is not to be alone.
Let us cherish sympathy. By attention and exercise it may be improved in every man. It prepares the mind for receiving the impressions of virtue; and without it there can be no true politeness. Nothing is more odious than that insensibility which wraps a man up in himself and his own concerns, and prevents his being moved with either the joys or the sorrows of another.
Attention | Character | Man | Mind | Nothing | Sympathy | Virtue | Virtue |
The reason we’re here is to exercise personal responsibility, to evolve the higher self and to influence that development in others.
Character | Influence | Reason | Responsibility | Self |
Enthusiasm is a kind of faith that has been set afire.
Character | Enthusiasm | Faith | Wisdom |
He that does not respect confidence will never find happiness in his path. The belief in virtue vanishes from his heart; the source of nobler actions becomes extinct in him.
Belief | Character | Confidence | Heart | Respect | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Respect | Happiness |
Faith without evidence is, properly, not faith, but prejudice or presumption; faith beyond evidence is superstition, and faith contrary to evidence is either insanity or willful perversity of mind.
Character | Evidence | Faith | Insanity | Mind | Prejudice | Presumption | Superstition |
The sound and proper exercise of the imagination may be made to contribute to the cultivation of all that is virtuous and estimable in the human character.
Character | Cultivation | Imagination | Sound |
There are many seasons in a man’s life - and the more exalted and responsible his position, the more frequently do these seasons recur - when the voice of duty and the dictates of feeling are opposed to each other; and it is only the weak and the wicked who yield that obedience to the selfish impulses of the heart which is due to reason and honor.
Character | Duty | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Man | Obedience | Position | Reason |
As a weak limb grows stronger by exercise, so will your faith be strengthened by the very efforts you make in stretching it out towards things unseen.
A firm faith is the best theology; a good life is the best philosophy, a clear conscience the best law; honesty the best policy, and temperance the best physic.
Character | Conscience | Faith | Good | Honesty | Law | Life | Life | Philosophy | Policy | Theology |
Just as a tested and rugged virtue of the moral hero is worth more than the lovely, tender, untried innocence of the child, so is the massive strength of a soul that has conquered truth for itself worth more than the soft peach-bloom faith of a soul that takes truth on trust.
Character | Faith | Hero | Innocence | Soul | Strength | Trust | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |