This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A wise man reflects before he speaks; a fool speaks and then reflects on what he has uttered.
A prudent person profits from personal experience, a wise one from the experience of others.
Experience | Wisdom | Wise |
Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski
Any fool can carry on, but only the wise can shorten sail.
The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places; and men of genius, in their walks at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind inwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.
Art | Folly | Genius | Meditation | Men | Mind | Solitude | Wisdom | Wise | Art |
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotation.
Experience | Wisdom | Wise |
He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by the very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection.
Courage | Despondency | Giving | Good | Means | Men | Perfection | Resolution | Strength | Weakness | Will | Wisdom | Wise |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
No man can be wise on an empty stomach.
With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by plan-conforming, conscious organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears... Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history - only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.
Anarchy | Consciousness | Existence | Freedom | History | Individual | Man | Means | Necessity | Organization | Plan | Society | Struggle | Time | Will | Wisdom |
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
It is part of human nature to think wise things and do ridiculous ones.
Human nature | Nature | Wisdom | Wise | Think |