This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
How can a man live free? By despising death.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Greatness of soul is not so much mounting high and pressing forward, as knowing how to put oneself in order and circumscribe oneself. It regards as great all that is enough and shows its elevation by preferring moderate things to eminent ones. There is nothing so beautiful and just as to play the man well and fitly, nor any knowledge so arduous as to know how to live this life well and naturally; and of all our maladies the most barbarous is to despise our being.
Character | Despise | Enough | Greatness | Knowing | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Order | Play | Soul |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which [we least know]a man knoweth least.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what ever man persuades another man to believe.
There is no greater pride than that of a poor man grown rich.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The recognition of virtue is not less valuable from the lips of the man who hates it, since truth forces him to acknowledge it; and though he may be unwilling to take it into his inmost soul, he at least decks himself out in its trappings.
Alberto Moravia, Pen name of Alberto Pincherle
Modern man - whether in the womb of the masses, or with his workmates, or with his family, or alone - can never for one moment forget that he is living in a world in which he is a means and whose end is not his business.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honor. Valor is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul.
Character | Heart | Honor | Man | Soul | Strength | Valor | Valor | Will | Worth | Value |
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. The more a man dreams, the less he believes.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
A man must become wise at this own expense.
Indignation is the seducer of thought. No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.
Character | Indignation | Man | Thought | Think |