This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe
When you have desires to do something wrong, you might feel so embarrassed with yourself for not being on a higher level that you try to repress those desires and forget about them. This is a mistake since it is not dealing with the problem but covering it up. Ignoring your inner feelings and reactions is dangerous. Be aware of what you desire, and have a dialogue with yourself to overcome it.
Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.
Character | Heart | Temptation |
Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.
Art | Cause | Character | Difficulty | Good | Men | Mistake | Thinking | Virtue | Virtue | Art |
Seymour Cohen, fully Seymour Jay Cohen
American education needs training for character.
The fire which seems extinguished often slumbers beneath the ashes.
From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according tot he predominancy of the element.
Character | Conscience | Destroy |
Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith
As friendship must be founded on mutual esteem, it cannot long exist among the vicious; for we soon find ill company to be like a dog, which dirts those the most whom he loves the best.
Character | Esteem | Friendship |
You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.
Charles Montagu Halifax, 1st Earl of Halifax, Lord Halifax
Men often mistake themselves, but they never forget themselves.
Head knowledge is good, but heart knowledge is indispensable. The training of the hands and feet must be added to make a rounded education. We must all learn these days to become spiritual pioneers if we would save the world from chaos.
Character | Education | Good | Heart | Indispensable | Knowledge | Training | World | Learn |
Be as careful of the books you read as the company you keep. Your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.
In judging character, too often we mistake rigidity for morality.