This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
We are more sensible of what is done against custom than of what is done against nature.
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
Choose always the way that seems best, however rough it may be, and custom will soon render it easy and agreeable.
Custom is generally too hard for Conscience. Custom is the Guide of the Ignorant. Custom without Reason, is but an ancient Error.
Conscience | Custom | Error | Reason |
The pressure that has been brought to bear upon the native people, since the cessation of armed conflict, in the attempt to force conformity of custom and habit has caused a reaction more destructive than war, and the injury has not only affected the Indian, but has extended to the white population as well. Tyranny, stupidity, and lack of vision have brought about the situation now alluded to as the “Indian Problem.”
Conformity | Custom | Force | Habit | People | Stupidity | Tyranny | Vision | War |
A custom of the world is so that we don’t see in a sea of mysteries the shores.
The gentleman trains his eyes so that they desire only to see what is right, his ears so that they desire to hear only what is right, his mind so that it desires to think only what is right. When he has truly learnt to love what is right, his eyes will take greater pleasure in it than in the fine colours; his ears will take greater pleasure than in the fine sounds; his mouth will take greater pleasure than in the fine flavours; and his mind will feel keener delight than in possession of the world. When he has reached this stage, he cannot be subverted by power or the love of profit. He cannot be swayed by the masses. He cannot be moved by the world. He follows this one thing in life; he follows it in death. This is what is called constancy of virtue.
Constancy | Desire | Love | Mind | Pleasure | Power | Will | Think |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift or law there is far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a national philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.
Absolute | Conformity | Crime | Custom | Force | Ideas | Law | Personality | Philosophy |
Be not so bigoted to any custom as to worship it at the expense of truth.
Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error, or rather that common consent in vice which these worthy men would have to be law.
We must continue to perform the sacred deeds even though we may be compelled to bribe the self with human incentives. Purity of motivation is the goal; constancy of action is the way… The way to purify the self is to avoid dwelling upon the self and to concentrate upon the task.
Action | Constancy | Deeds | Purity | Sacred | Self | Deeds |
Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.
Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof. In your abuse thereof sinning against God harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations and by all strangers that come among you to be scorned and held in contempt; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.
John Dalberg-Acton, Lord Acton, fully John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.