This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos
Consumption, celebrity and the quest for perfection in this world are all subject to the law of diminishing returns: each successive acquisition and achievement will mean less than the one before. Diminishing returns are finally leading to diminished expectations about the promise of finding happiness without caring for our souls. Perhaps we are now ready to reject the hucksters of materialisms that have lured us down so many dead ends, and start again on the road that will lead us back to God.
Achievement | Character | Ends | God | Law | Perfection | Promise | Will | World | Happiness |
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
Human happiness seems to consists in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition.
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
In the midst of hopes and cares, of apprehensions and of disquietude, regard every day that dawns upon you as if it was to be your last; then super-added hours, to the enjoyment of which you had not looked forward, will prove an acceptable boon.
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
Character | Indecision | Nothing |
It is our daily duty to consider that in all circumstances of life, pleasurable, painful, or otherwise, the conduct of every human being affects, more or less, the happiness of others, especially of those in the same house; and that, as life is made up, for the most part, not of great occasions, but of small everyday moments, it is the giving to those moments their greatest amount of peace, pleasantness, and security, that contributes most to the sum of human good. Be peaceable. Be cheerful. Be true.
Character | Circumstances | Conduct | Duty | Giving | Good | Life | Life | Peace | Security | Happiness |
Our perceptions and our understanding are directed, in large measure, by our will. We are aware of, and we think about, the things which, for one reason or another, we want to see and understand. Where there’s a will there is always an intellectual way. The capacities of the human mind are almost indefinitely great.
There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
Happiness is not found, it is made. One can only give the seed of happiness to another. Each one must make it grow within himself.
Temperaunce... is a moderate gouernaunce of reason, and also one of the car [di] nall vertues.
We may begin with considering a-new the nature and force of sympathy. The minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations, nor can any one be actuated by any affection, of which all others are not, in some degree, susceptible. As in strings equally bound up, the motion of one communicates itself to the rest; so all the affections readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature.
Character | Feelings | Force | Men | Nature | Rest | Sympathy |
There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
We may, if we like, by our reasonings unwind things to that black and jointless continuity of space and moving clouds of swarming atoms which science calls the only real world. But all the while the world we feel and live in will be that which our ancestors and we, by slowly cumulative strokes of choice, have extricated out of this, like sculptors, by simply rejecting certain portion of the given stuff. Other sculptors, other statues from the same stone! Other minds, other worlds from the same monotonous and inexpressive chaos! My world is but one in a million alike embedded, alike real to those who may abstract them.
Abstract | Character | Choice | Science | Space | Will | World |
One of the most useless of all things is to take a deal of trouble in providing against dangers that never come. How many toil to lay up riches which they never enjoy; to provide for exigencies that never happen; to prevent troubles that never come; sacrificing present comfort and enjoyment in guarding against the wants of a period they may never live to see.
Character | Comfort | Enjoyment | Present | Riches | Troubles | Wants | Riches | Trouble |
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.
There’ll be no night in Heav’n, In that blest world above; No anxious toil, no weary hours; For labor there is love. There’ll be no sorrow there, There’ll be no sorrow there, In Heav’n above, where all is love, There’ll be no sorrow there. There’ll be no grief in Heav’n, For life is one glad day, And tears are those of former things Which all have passed way. There’ll be no sin in Heav’n; Behold that blessèd throng, All holy in their spotless robes, All holy in their song.
Action | Character | Conduct | Devotion | Faith | Good | Grief | Labor | Life | Life | Love | Sin | Sorrow | Suffering | Tears | Work | World | Blessed |