This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness.
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadwood, or canals, or statues, or songs.
As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.
Truth |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.
You make up your mind before you start that sacrifice is part of the package to be successful.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Man in pursuit of worldly gain may be compared to a thirsty man within reach of briny waters: the more he drinks, the thirstier he is.
Man |
The only thing we really have is nowness, is now. Sometimes when I teach these things, a person will come up to me afterward and say: “All this seems obvious! I’ve always known it. Tell me something new.” I say to him or her: “Have you actually understood, and realized, the truth of impermanence? Have you so integrated it with your every thought, breath, and movement that your life has been transformed? Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding of death and impermanence become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer ‘yes’ to both of these, then you have really understood impermanence.”
Death | Life | Life | Teach | Truth | Understanding | Will |
Theodor Herzl, born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl
There was nothing original in the conception that the world was round; it was held by all educated astronomers of the time. The greatness of Columbus was rather in the courage that he displayed in venturing into the unknown sea to prove the validity of his thesis and his pertinacity in the pursuit of his project.
Fanaticism is idolatry; and it has the moral evil of idolatry in it; that is, a fanatic worships something which is the creation of his own desire, and thus even his self-devotion in support of it is only an apparent or his mind, which he least values, offer sacrifice to that which he most values.
Desire | Devotion | Evil | Fanaticism | Mind | Sacrifice | Self |
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
Compassion | Endurance | Man | Sacrifice | Soul | Spirit | Will |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
So I say that civilizations begin with religion and stoicism: they end with skepticism and unbelief, and the undisciplined pursuit of individual pleasure. A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
Civilization | Individual | Pleasure | Religion | Skepticism | Stoic | Unbelief |
William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
Compassion | Courage | Duty | Endurance | Glory | Heart | Man | Need | Past | Pity | Sacrifice | Soul | Spirit | Will | Privilege |
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
Benjamin Cardozo, fully Benjamin Nathan Cardozo
The submergence of self in the pursuit of an ideal, the readiness to spend oneself without measure, prodigally, almost ecstatically, for something intuitively apprehended as great and noble, spend oneself one knows not why - some of us like to believe that this is what religion means.
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Defense | Justice | Liberty | Moderation | Virtue | Virtue | Moderation |