This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne
Many a scholar is like a cashier: he has the key to much money, but the money is not his.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Character is money; and according as the man earns or spends the money, money in turn becomes character. As money is the most evident power in the world’s uses, so the use that he makes of money is often all that the world knows about a man.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
What’s money without happiness?
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Vanity, indeed, is the very antidote to conceit; for while the former makes us all nerve to the opinions of others, the latter is perfectly satisfied with its opinion of itself.
If in the last few years you hadn't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, 1st Baron Burghley, also Lord William Cecil Burleigh
Beware of suretyship for thy best friend. He that payeth another man’s debt seeketh his own decay. But if thou canst not otherwise choose, rather lend the money thyself upon good bonds, although thou borrow it; so shalt thou secure thyself, and pleasure thy friend.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Whatever you lend let it be your money, and not your name. Money you may get again, and, if not, you may contrive to do without it; name once lost cannot get again, and, if you cannot contrive to do without it, you had better never have been born.
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
I am of opinion that there are no proverbial sayings which are not true, because they are all sentences drawn from experience itself, who is the mother of all sciences.
Experience | Mother | Opinion | Wisdom |
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds.
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 defense around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms.
Defense | Judgment | Life | Life | Men | Opinion | Power | Progress | Property | Society | Wisdom | World |
Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence.
Agatha Christie, fully Dame Agatha Miller Christie
To say that every crime brings its own punishment is by way of being a platitude, and yet in my opinion nothing can be truer.
Crime | Nothing | Opinion | Punishment | Wisdom |
We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living.