This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of the wise is in their heart.
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise, and their conscience that is wrong.
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.
The most generous and merciful in judgment upon the faults of others, are always the most free from faults themselves.
The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms.
Character | Judgment | Life | Life | Men | Opinion | Power | Progress | Property | Society | World |
The freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, an control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.
Character | Choice | Control | Freedom | Ignorance | Judgment | Knowledge | Man | Nature | Necessity | Object | Question | Uncertainty | Will |
Sydney Dobell, fully Sydney Thompson Dobell
It often requires more strength and judgment to resist than to embrace an opportunity. It is better to do nothing than to do other than well.
Better | Character | Judgment | Nothing | Opportunity | Strength |
When your property or possessions sustain some damage or loss, work on yourself to accept the Almighty’s judgment with love. Realize you were born without any belongings and you will eventually leave the world without belongings. You need not identify with your possessions since they are not an integral part of you.
Character | Judgment | Love | Need | Possessions | Property | Will | Work | World |
Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.
There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world’s ills will be cured.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, an scarcely in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. Remember this; they that will not be counseled cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you over your knuckles.
Advice | Character | Conduct | Experience | Reason | Will | Learn |
We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.
Balance | Censure | Character | Evil | Good | Inquiry | Judgment | Mankind | Praise |
Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.
Character | Imagination | Reality | World |