This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What a vast difference there is between the barbarism that precedes culture and the barbarism that follows it.
One great difference between a wise man and a fool is, the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities.
One great difference between a wise man and a fool is: the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities.
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.
Desire |
The great difference between the real statesman and the pretender is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts on expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for immortality.
Day | Future | Immortality | Present | Principles |
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned into it), are the natural securities for this transmission.
Avarice | Benevolence | Circumstances | Distinction | Family | Possessions | Power | Property | Society | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness | Wealth | Society |
The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
Consideration | Desire | Doctrine | Humanity | Justice | Law | Public |
Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood.
Contention | Despair | Fear | Force | Future | History | Humanity | Love | Man | Mankind | Memory | Mind | Motives | Nature | Past | Peace | Pity | Power | Pride | Property | Silence | Society | Submission | Success | Society |
What then makes a man beautiful? Is it not the possession of the excellence of a man?
Excellence | Man | Excellence |
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Ellen Glasgow, fully Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions.
Grave |
We eventually lose everything we have, yet what ultimately matters can never be lost. Our houses, cars, jobs, and money, our youth and even our loved ones, are just on loan to us… If life is a school, loss is a major part of the curriculum… Our reality here is not permanent; neither is our ownership of anything. Everything is temporary. Trying to find permanence is impossible, and we ultimately learn that there is no safety in trying to “keep” everything. And there is no safety in trying to prevent loss… Loss is often an initiation into adulthood… Loss is a right of passage.
Life | Life | Money | Reality | Right | Youth | Youth | Loss | Learn |
Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.
It will be found a work of no small difficulty to dispossess a vice from the heart, where long possession begins to plead prescription.
Difficulty | Heart | Will | Work | Vice |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Achievement | Cost | Destiny | Effort | Joy | Men | Money | Teach | Will | Work | Worth |
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.