This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The kindness of the people is but an empty shell containing no gem or precious pearl. With two hearts do people live; a small one of deep softness, the other of steel. And kindness is too often a shield, and generosity too often a sword.
Generosity | Kindness | People |
Laurence J. Peter, fully Laurence Johnston Peter
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
At moments of crisis, where the roads to disintegration or to development separate, as on a watershed, a single decisive personality, or a small group of informed and purposeful men, may be a slight push determine the direction and movement of an otherwise uncontrollable mass of conflicting social forces… Only within the compass of the person can a total change be affected within the span of a single generation, sufficient to produce the necessary effect on civilization at large: like the seed crystal, he passes on to the whole new order of the part.
Change | Civilization | Men | Order | Personality |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
I care more for that long age which I shall never see than for my own small share of time.
Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead as to its own. Such an one can do no deed however small but it is clothed with something of God’s power and authority.
Authority | God | Mind | Nothing | Power | Quiet | Self | Will | God |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man.
Mikhail Bakunin, fully Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
While small States are virtuous of their feebleness, powerful States sustain themselves only through crime.
Crime |
The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire make a small amount of heat.
Achievement | Desire | Mind |
Norman Mailer, fully Norman Kingsley Mailer
The need of the city is to accelerate growth; the pride of the small town is to retard it.
Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL
We can do no great things – only small things with great love.
Love |
As a small business-person, you have no greater leverage than truth.
A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them: they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs.