This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded people’s thoughts move in such small circles that five minute’s’ conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect does not differ sensibly from a straight line.
Character | Conversation | Enough | Little | People | Intellect |
Be as careful of the books you read as the company you keep. Your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
The business of philosophy is to circumnavigate human nature.
Business | Character | Human nature | Nature | Philosophy | Business |
The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days.
Character | Human nature | Kindness | Nature |
Activity is the presence of function - character is the record of function.
A good character is, in all cases, the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents, it is not created by external advantages, it is no necessary appendage of birth, wealth, talents or station; but it is the result of one’s own endeavors.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.
The human species... capacity for good is infinite, since they can, they desire, make room within themselves for divine Reality. But at the same time their capacity for evil is, not indeed infinite (since evil is always ultimately self-destructive and therefore temporary), but uniquely great. Hell is total separation from God, and the devil is the will to that separation... To be diabolic on the grand scale, one must, like Milton’s Satan, exhibit in a high degree all the moral virtues, except only charity and wisdom.
Capacity | Character | Charity | Desire | Devil | Evil | God | Good | Hell | Reality | Satan | Self | Time | Will | Wisdom |
Custom is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared I the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.
Action | Character | Custom | Ends | Events | Experience | Future | Influence | Life | Life | Means | Memory | Past | Present | Speculation |
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
Character | Human nature | Nature |