This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Harold Lewis, fully Harold "Hal" Warren Lewis
It is a curious paradox that aversion of future harm seems more important than the promise of future benefit. That was not always true. Those who are unwilling to invent in the future haven’t earned one.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
Character | Imagination | Society | Solitude | Society |
All the Actions, that we have any Idea of, reducing themselves, as has been said, to these two, viz. Thinking and Motion, so far as a Man has a power to think, or not to think; to move or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a Man Free. Wherever any performance or forbearance are not equally in a Man’s power; wherever doing or not doing, will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there he is not Free, though perhaps the Action may be voluntary.
Action | Character | Forbearance | Man | Mind | Power | Preference | Thinking | Will |
What is it that determines the Will in regard to our Actions?... we shall find, that we being capable but of one determination of the will to one action at once, the present uneasiness, that we are under, does naturally determine the will, in order to that happiness which we all aim at in all our actions: For as much as whilst we are under any uneasiness, we cannot apprehend ourselves happy, or in the way to it... And therefore that, which of course determines the choice of our will to the next action, will always be the removing of pain, as long as we have any left, as the first and necessary step towards happiness.
Action | Character | Choice | Determination | Happy | Order | Pain | Present | Regard | Will | Happiness |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Who are happy in marriage? Those with so little imagination that they cannot picture a better state, and those so shrewd that they prefer quiet slavery to hopeless rebellion.
Better | Character | Happy | Imagination | Little | Marriage | Quiet | Rebellion | Slavery |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
A strong imagination begetteth opportunity, say the wise men.
Character | Imagination | Men | Opportunity | Wise |
To put Happiness in actions is to put it in things that are outside virtue and outside the Soul; for the Soul’s expression is not in action but in wisdom, in a contemplative operation within itself; and this, this alone, is Happiness.
Action | Character | Soul | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Happiness |
He who is most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in its performance.