This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing. Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness. When people are bored, they generally look about for a new pleasure, or take a holiday. There is no greater mistake: what they want is some hard piece of work, some productive drudgery. Doctors are fond of sending their fashionable patients to take a rest cure. In nine cases out of ten a work cure would do them far more good.
Character | Good | Happy | Idleness | Mistake | Nothing | People | Pleasure | Rest | Work |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.
Character | Desire | God | Humility | Man | Nothing | Power | Silence | Soul | Wishes |
Genuine self-government is possible only in very small groups, societies on a national or super-national scale will always be ruled by oligarchical minorities, whose members come to power because they have a lust for power.
A person’s first obligation is to work on having an orderly mind and to decide on what thoughts he will think about.
Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva
No man can force the harp of his own individuality into the people’s heart; but every man may play upon the chords of the people’s heart, who draws his inspiration from the people’s instinct.
Character | Force | Heart | Individuality | Inspiration | Instinct | Man | People | Play |
Robin Lakoff, fully Robin Tolmach Lakoff
The distinction between men’s and women’s language is a symptom of a problem in our culture, not the problem itself. Basically it reflects the fact that men and women are expected to have different interests and different roles, hold different types of conversations, and react differently to other people.
Character | Culture | Distinction | Language | Men | People |
We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves: we encourage each other in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.
Character | Longing | Mediocrity | Men | Nothing |
Walter Kerr, fully Walter Francis Kerr
The work we are doing is more or less the work we meant to do in life [but] it does not yield us the feeling of accomplishment we had expected... If I were required to put into a single sentence my own explanation of the state of our hearts, heads, and nerves, I would do it this way: we are vaguely wretched because we are leading half-lives, half-heartedly, and with only one-half of our minds actively, engaged in making contact with the universe about us.
Accomplishment | Character | Life | Life | Universe | Work |