This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
Our understanding are always liable to error. Nature and certainty is very hard to come at; and infallibility is mere vanity and pretense.
Character | Error | Nature | Understanding |
Henry Christopher "H.C." Bailey
Indecision and hesitation are the weakness of a careful nature always intent on the saving of face and losing it thereby.
Character | Indecision | Nature | Weakness |
If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man’s enmity needlessly; since any man’s love may be useful, and every man’s hatred is dangerous.
Character | Desire | Good | Love | Man | Means | Men | Will |
Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson
It is when we detect our own weaknesses that we come to pity or despise mankind. The human nature from which we then turn away is the human nature we have discovered in the depths of our own being. The evil is so well screened, the secret so universally kept, that in this case each individual is the dupe of all: however severely we may profess to judge other men, at bottom we think them better than ourselves. On this happy illusion much of our social life is grounded.
Better | Character | Despise | Evil | Happy | Human nature | Illusion | Individual | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Nature | Pity | Think |
Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
True friendship... always involves the dominance of benevolent impulses, tending toward the benefit of the beloved, whereas the counterfeits of friendship spring primarily or purely from acquisitive desire - seeking something for one’s self.
Character | Desire | Self | Friendship |
I live in the world, but I seem to myself not of it!.. Natural phenomena are but the shadows of the spirit form which they spring, as the human face changes under the influence of love, hatred or fear... When, O when, shall I be able to reveal its poetry? I see everywhere and in ever object unceasing motion, and in that motion a creative force forever and forever repeating and re-repeating the same simple process as to infinity. Through all nature the grand rhythms roll and heaven and earth are filled with the melody. Men are but boys chasing shadows. The spiritual significance of the world none seem to see - the infinite simplicity of its process are none care to understand.
Boys | Care | Character | Earth | Fear | Force | Heaven | Influence | Love | Melody | Men | Nature | Object | Phenomena | Poetry | Simplicity | Spirit | World |
Wernher von Braun, fully Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun
Part of human nature resents change, loves equilibrium, while another part welcomes novelty, loves the excitement of disequilibrium. There is no formula for the resolution of this tug-of-war, but it is obvious that absolute surrender to either of them invites disaster.
Absolute | Change | Character | Excitement | Human nature | Nature | Novelty | Resolution | Surrender | War |
I had the opportunity to deliver babies... In each of these numinous moments, I knew that life had meaning; each experience was accompanied by an upwelling of gratitude and humility. These moments, which can be called an experience of the self, or archetype of meaning, are akin to the act of finally seeing the Holy Grail after a long quest... It is through these moments of grace and gratitude that we acquire a sense of meaning and a desire to live a meaningful life. The personal challenge is now.
Challenge | Character | Desire | Experience | Grace | Gratitude | Humility | Life | Life | Meaning | Opportunity | Self | Sense |