This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.
Character | Conduct | Conscience | Enthusiasm | Good | Honor |
Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
It is an arduous task to ensure a better life for the several hundred million people of China and to build our economically and culturally backward country into a prosperous and powerful one with a high level of culture. And it is precisely in order to be able to shoulder this task more competently and work better together with all non-Party people who are actuated by high ideals and determined to institute reforms that we must conduct rectification movements both now and in the future, and constantly rid ourselves of whatever is wrong.
Better | Conduct | Ideals | Life | Life | Order | People | Work |
The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.
It is no more natural and no less conventional to shout in anger or to kiss in love than to call a table 'a table'. Feelings and passional conduct are invented like words. Even those which like paternity seem to be part and parcel of the human make-up are in reality institutions. It is impossible to superimpose on man a lower layer of behavior which one chooses to call 'natural' followed by a manufactured cultural or spiritual world. Everything is both manufactured and natural in man as it were in the sense that there is not a word, not a form of behavior which does not owe something to purely biological being and which at the same time does not elude the simplicity of animal life and cause forms of vital behavior to deviate from their pre-ordained direction through a sort of leakage and through a genius for ambiguity which might serve to define man.
Ambiguity | Anger | Behavior | Cause | Conduct | Feelings | Genius | Life | Life | Love | Man | Reality | Sense | Simplicity | Time |
Marva Collins, born Marva Delores Nettles
Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The category of “commandments,” which are commanded to the person, are relevant only when the person is an existence unto himself [separate from the One], so that then the category of the commandments of the Holy One… falls upon him, and he should conduct himself according to the will of the Holy One. But, after the completion of one’s personal service in the fulfilment of the commandments, so all of his existence (every detail that exists) is permeated with the will of the Holy One. … This makes the [one who is]… ‘commanded’ joined with the Holy One, until they become one entity, ‘Israel (through the Torah) and the Holy One are all One.’ This will be revealed in the future to come- that the categorisation of commandment isn't relevant to man (since he is not an existence unto himself); this is because, his existence is [one with] the will of the Holy One
Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it.
Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it meaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and question it as to its meaning, its conditions, and its goals. Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem.
Conduct | Freedom | Object | Present | Question | Thought | Thought |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means “good conduct”.
Civilization | Conduct | Duty | Man | Means | Mind | Morality |
Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL
Thus the village head was the most humane (ren) man in the village. The village head issued an order to the people of the village, stating: “Hearing of good and not good, you amust report it to the district head. What the district head deems right (shi), all must deem right; what the district head deems not (fei), all must deem not. Discard your bad statements and learn the good statements of the district head; discard your bad conduct and learn the good conduct of the district head. Then how could the district be disorderly? Examine what it is that puts the district in order (zhi): It's that the district head is able to unify the morality (yi) of the district, thus the district is in order.
Conduct | Good | Man | Morality | Order | People | Right | Learn |
Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL
So then what will be acceptable to take as a model for order? Thus he said, Nothing is like modeling oneself on Heaven. Heaven's conduct is expansive and impartial; its gifts are generous and demand no repayment; its brightness endures without fading. Thus the sage kings model themselves on it.
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
What is the character and general structures of the universe in which we live? Is there a permanent element in the constitution of this universe? How are we related to it? What place do we occupy in it, and what is the kind of conduct that benefits the place we occupy? These questions are common to religion, philosophy, and higher poetry.
It is your own conduct which will lead you to reward or punishment, as if you had been destined therefore.
Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Anger (being hostile) is a quality which to some, is like a religion. How can we kill it? It can only be killed by a sharpened intellect (koorvaputhi). Anger is like an elephant, - heavy, burdensome, which obliterates everything on its path, and cannot be killed easily. A very sharp intellect is the only weapon with which you can kill it. In folklore, it is said that if you are able to kill it, you are likened to a 'dev muni' (a petty god in tamil folklore). To us, it means that one could realise the Truth (Haqq) which is Allah. Further we have arrogance, which is the "I" in me, and everything else that is associated with the "I". It is also said in Tamil folklore, that so long as the pride and arrogance remains as the "I" in me, they will slaughter me. That "I" consciousness will unerringly drag my mind down to abysmal depths of degradation. Like a mote in your eye which affects your vision, it blocks the power of the mind. Whilst the arrogance of the "I" infects the mind, and whilst the greed of "mine" envelops the mind, then you are under the fatal stranglehold. Then your eyes are dazzled by the visions portrayed, and you succumb to that stranglehold. So the constant intention and inward prayer should be - "Oh Allah, the Almighty Power, let the arrogance that is "I", and the greed that is called "mine" be cast asunder, that I shall see Thee in all thy Majesty". That is the priceless effulgent Thing. That is why we always say, annihilate the "I", because that is the cause of your disease of misery, (thoonbam). Your pride, your arrogance, your greed, your lust, your attachments, all have the "I", your base ego being the generator. The idea of "I" and "mine" permeates your entire being and taints your every thought and action, your conduct and behaviour. Therefore, if and when you come to possess the knowledge to cross this abyss of the "I" and "mine" then that knowledge you must have before you can pursue your religion, whatever it may be.
Anger | Arrogance | Cause | Conduct | Consciousness | Disease | Ego | God | Greed | Intention | Kill | Knowledge | Means | Mind | Power | Prayer | Pride | Thought | Truth | Will | God | Intellect | Thought |
Nāgārjuna, fully Acharya Nāgārjuna NULL
Property is unstable, and youth perishes in a moment. Life itself is held in the grinning fangs of Death, yet men delay to obtain release from the world. Alas, the conduct of mankind is surprising.
Conduct | Delay | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Youth | Youth |
Musonius, fully Gaius Musonnius Rufus NULL
In the care of the sick we demand the physician be free from error, but in the conduct of life it is not only the philosopher whom we expect to be free from error, but all men alike, including those who give little attention to virtue. Clearly there is no explanation for this other than that the human being is born with an inclination toward virtue; all men speak of themselves as having virtue and being good.
Attention | Care | Conduct | Inclination | Life | Life | Little | Men | Virtue | Virtue |
Why do we think technology is above morality? ... The real question is, 'How should I conduct my life?' rather than 'What tools should I use?'
Conduct | Question | Technology | Think |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol
Mind you learn your lessons, Pavlusha, don't play the fool and don't get into scrapes, but spare no pain to please your teachers and superiors. So long as you please your superiors it does not matter if you are no good at learning and God has not endowed you with talent: you will still go far and outstrip the others. Do not keep company with your schoolfellows; they will teach you no good; but if you must, then choose those that are richer so that when the occasion arises they may be useful to you. Do not open your purse too freely to others, but rather conduct yourself in such a manner that others will open their freely to you, and, most important, husband your money and save every copeck: of all things in the world, money is the most dependable. A playmate or friend will lead you a merry dance and will be the first to betray you in times of trouble, but a copeck will never betray you, whatever trouble you might be in. With that copeck you can do everything and achieve everything in this world.
Conduct | Friend | God | Good | Husband | Learning | Money | Pain | Play | Teach | Will | Trouble | God | Learn |
Style is not created through servile imitation of the masters; it proceed from the artist's own particular way of feeling and expressing himself.