This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal
Every aspect of our lives is a challenge and a test. With this perspective, life will never be boring or mundane. Every single situation and occurrence is different from each other and each is an opportunity for elevation and growth.
Challenge | Character | Growth | Life | Life | Opportunity | Will |
Madame de Maintenon, Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, formerly Madame Scarron
We do not meet with success except by reiterated efforts.
A person is a success if he works on the trait of sincerely desiring other people’s success. It is easy to talk as if you wish someone success but inwardly hope he fails. In general you should know that without hard work and wisdom it is impossible to reach any virtue, and you will remain with your natural tendencies and behavior.
Behavior | Character | Hope | People | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Work |
Madmen... do not appear to me to have lost the faculty of reasoning, but having joined together some ideas very wrongly, they mistake them for truths; and they err as men do that argue right from wrong principles. For, by the violence of their imaginations, having taken their fancies for realities, they make right deductions from them.
Character | Ideas | Men | Mistake | Principles | Right | Wrong |
Our whole life should speak forth our thankfulness; every condition and place we are in should be a witness to our thankfulness. This will make the times and places we live in better for us. When we ourselves are monuments of God’s mercy, it is fit we should be patterns of His praises, and leave monuments to others. We should think it given to us to do something better than to live in. We live not to live: our life is not the end of itself, but the praise of the giver.
Better | Character | God | Life | Life | Mercy | Praise | Thankfulness | Will | Witness | Think |
Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach
Who is a righteous man and who is an evil man? Many people think a righteous man is one who does not transgress, and the evil person is one who constantly transgresses. But even the very righteous also transgress and even the very wicked perform good deeds. The essential difference between the two is that a righteous person tries to overcome his desires to do wrong and the evil person does not.
Character | Deeds | Evil | Good | Man | People | Wrong | Think |
Get to know two things about a man - how he earns his money and how he spends it - and you have a clue to his character, for you have a searchlight that shows up the inmost recesses of his soul. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.
Character | Man | Money | Motives | Need | Religion | Soul |
Anne Monroe, fully Anne Shannon Monroe
Loneliness is only an opportunity to cut adrift and find yourself.
Character | Loneliness | Opportunity |
Arundell Charles St. John-Mildmay
Every duty brings its peculiar delight, every denial its appropriate compensation, every thought its recompense, every love its elysium, every cross its crown; pay goes with performance as effect with cause. Meanness overreaches itself; vice vitiates whoever indulges it; the wicked wrong their own souls; generosity greatens; virtue exalts; charity transfigures; and holiness is the essence of angelhood. God does not require us to live on credit; he pays us what we earn as we earn it, good or evil, heaven or hell, according to our choice.
Cause | Character | Charity | Choice | Compensation | Credit | Duty | Evil | Generosity | God | Good | Heaven | Hell | Love | Meanness | Recompense | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Wrong | God | Thought | Vice |
J. R. Miller, fully James Russell Miller
It is not enough to begin; continuance is necessary. Mere enrollment will not make one scholar; the pupil must continue in the school through the long course, until he masters every branch. Success depends upon staying power. The reason for failure in most cases is lack of perseverance.
Character | Enough | Failure | Perseverance | Power | Reason | Scholar | Success | Will | Failure |