This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Habit has great power. We can become used to almost everything. We can become so used to a life of suffering that we are no longer aware that our suffering is not the way life should be lived. This tendency to lack a feeling of suffering is the biggest obstacle to becoming elevated through suffering. Since we do not feel the suffering, we do not pay attention to it and do not hear its message.. To overcome this, we must obtain an awareness that whenever things are not as they should be it is a message that we should improve ourselves in some area.
Attention | Awareness | Character | Habit | Life | Life | Power | Suffering | Awareness | Obstacle |
J. T. Headley, fully Joel T. Headley
To refine and polish is a part of our work in this world.
There is no perfect knowledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate; none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses; all knowledge, at all events, is examined by these, approved by them, and finally presents itself to us firmly grounded upon some preexisting knowledge which we possessed: because without memory there is no experience, which is nothing else than reiterated memory; in like manner memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been.
Character | Endurance | Events | Experience | Knowledge | Memory | Nothing |
Conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded people’s thoughts move in such small circles that five minute’s’ conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect does not differ sensibly from a straight line.
Character | Conversation | Enough | Little | People | Intellect |
There are two kinds of artist in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to other the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.
Admiration | Beauty | Character | Desire | Spirit | Work | World | Beauty |
Suffering is meant to benefit not only the individual who is personally suffering. It is meant as a teacher to anyone who sees it or hears about it. The suffering of anyone in the world can serve as a tool we can use to learn lessons that will elevate us.
Character | Individual | Suffering | Will | World | Learn | Teacher |
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
A nation is a thing that lives and acts like a man, and men are the particles of which it is composed.
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
Every man’s power have relation to some kind of work; and whenever he finds that kind of work which we can do best - that to which his powers are best adapted - he finds that which will give him the best development, and that by which he can best build up, or make, his manhood.
Stephen Grellet, born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier
I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
The noblest service comes from nameless hands, and the best servant does his work unseen.
To this war of every man, against every man, this is also consequent that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice, are none of the faculties neither of the body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his sense, and passions. They are qualities, that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thing distinct; but only that to be every man’s, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it.
Body | Character | Force | Fraud | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Law | Man | Men | Mind | Nothing | Power | Qualities | Right | Sense | Society | Solitude | War | World | Wrong |
It is one thing when business is interested in young people as students. Quite another when they are interested in students as consumers. It is one thing when the marketplace supports the schools. Quite another when the schools become a marketplace.
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.
Suffering is a great teacher. Suffering teaches you the limitations of your power; it reminds you of the frailty of your health, the instability of your possessions, and the inadequacy of your means which have only been lent to you and must be returned as soon as the Owner desires it. Suffering visits you and teaches you the nothingness of your false greatness. It teaches you modesty.
Character | Greatness | Health | Instability | Means | Modesty | Possessions | Power | Suffering |
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
It is much easier to think right without doing right, than to do right without thinking right. Just thoughts may, and often do, fail of producing just deeds; but just deeds are sure to get just thoughts. The clearest understanding can do little in purifying an impure heart, the strongest little in straightening a crooked one. You cannot reason or talk an Augean stable into cleanliness. A single day's work would make more progress in such a task than a century's words.
Character | Cleanliness | Day | Deeds | Heart | Little | Progress | Reason | Right | Thinking | Understanding | Words | Work | Deeds | Think |
Feel the dignity of a child. Do not feel superior to him, for you are not.