This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
W. D. Ross, fully Sir William David Ross
It would be a mistake to found a natural science on ‘what we really think’ ... opinions are interpretations, and often misinterpretations, of sense-experience; and the man of science must appeal from these to sense-experience itself, which furnishes his real data. In ethics no such appeal is possible... the moral convictions of thoughtful and well-educated people are the data of ethics just as sense-perceptions are the data of a natural science.
Character | Convictions | Ethics | Experience | Man | Mistake | People | Science | Sense |
If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father’s vices; thou canst not rebuke that in children that they behold practiced in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts; such as thy behavior is before they children’s faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents backs.
Behavior | Character | Children | Desire | Father | Parents | Reason | Rebuke | Child |
Red Cloud, fully Maȟpíya Lúta in Lakota NULL
Look at me - I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.
Character | Children | Good | Love | Peace | Riches | Right | World | Riches |
The one and only serious mistake is to be afraid of making mistakes.
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
Whatever you would have your children become, strive to exhibit in your own lives and conversation.
Character | Children | Conversation |
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us?
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Necessity is the mother of "taking chances."
Educate your children of self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes from society.
Character | Children | Control | Evil | Future | Habit | Passion | Prejudice | Self | Self-control | Society | Will |
Dada Vaswani, born Jashan Pahalraj Vaswani
What is the meaning of life? The meaning may not be expressed in words. It transcends the mind and the intellect. The meaning is to be experienced, realized... It is open to everyone who would live according to certain disciplines... The discipline of duty. Life is a field of duty, not a dance of desires... The discipline of service... We are here to help others... The opposite of love is not hate but apathy... The discipline of silence... The meaning of life is to love God and to give the service of love to the suffering children of God. And to the birds and animals who are God’s children as well.
Apathy | Character | Children | Discipline | Duty | God | Hate | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mind | Service | Silence | Suffering | Words | God |