This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation.
Character | Forbearance | Magnanimity | Obligation | Practice | Thankfulness | Virtue | Virtue |
As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.
Cause | Character | Man | Matrimony | Means | Right | Surrender | Trifles | Wife | Wise |
French Student Revolt Graffiti NULL
The Revolution must take place in men before it can be manifest in things.
Character | Men | Revolution |
For most Americans the sexual revolution was not a vast national orgy of swingers. There was never widespread approval of adultery or promiscuity. The revolution - evolution is a better word - appeared rather as a massive questioning of the double standard and the sexual constraints we grew up with.
Adultery | Better | Character | Evolution | Promiscuity | Revolution | Approval |
Whether a revolution succeeds or miscarries, men of great hearts will always be its victims.
Character | Men | Revolution | Will |
The great revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
Change | Character | Discovery | Revolution | Discovery |
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
It was left for the Germans to bring about a revolution of a kind never seen before: [the Nazi] revolution, devoid of ideas... and opposed to everything that is higher, better and decent; opposed to liberty, truth, and justice.
Better | Character | Ideas | Justice | Liberty | Revolution | Truth |
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is a temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
Character | Good | Politics | Statesmanship | Wise |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection and revolution from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition.
Enough | God | Heart | Humility | Nature | Nothing | Pious | Pride | Revolution | Wisdom |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of power.
Power | Reform | Revolution | Wisdom |
Brander Matthews, fully James Brander Matthews
The worst effect of party is its tendency to generate narrow, false, and illiberal prejudices, by teaching the adherents of one party to regard those that belong to an opposing party as unworthy of confidence.
Confidence | Regard | Wisdom |
French Student Revolt Graffiti NULL
There can be revolution only where there is a conscience.
Conscience | Revolution | Wisdom |
Ulysses S. Grant, fully Ulysses Simpson Grant, born Hiram Ulysses Grant
Too long denial of guaranteed right is sure to lead to revolution - bloody revolution, where suffering must fall upon the innocent as well as the guilty.
Revolution | Right | Suffering | Wisdom |