This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"A man who truly wants to make the world better should start by improving himself and his attitudes." - Fred de Armond
"The true way to gain much, is never to desire to gain too much. He is not rich that possesses much, but he that covets no more; and he is not poor that enjoys little, but he that wants too much." - Francis Beaumont
"Faith is the soul going out of itself for all its wants." - Thomas Boston
"My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants." - Joseph Brotherton
"There are seasons, in human affairs, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when to dare, is the highest wisdom." - William Ellery Channing
"It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants." - William Cobbett
"Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is made up of meanness and malice. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and the measure of happiness abated. It laments over prosperity, and sickens at the sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit as well as good nature." - Jeremy Collier
"There is no truer and more abiding happiness than the knowledge that one is free to go on doing, day by day, the best work one can do, in the kind one likes best, and that this work is absorbed by a steady market, and thus supports one's own life. Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work does what he wants to do." -
"If a man wants to be of the greatest possible value to his fellow creatures, let him begin the long, solitary task of perfecting himself." - Robertson Davies
"The things you own end up owning you." - Tyler Durden, character created by Chuck Palahniuk in "Fight Club"
"Works without faith are like a fish without water, it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action is as a stone laid." - Owen Feltham
"It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived." - Henry Fielding
"An undivided heart, which worships God alone, and trusts Him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants." - John Cunningham Geikie
"He is well along the road to perfect manhood who does not allow the thousand little worries of life to embitter his temper, or disturb his equanimity. An undivided heart which worships God alone, and trust him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants." - John Cunningham Geikie
"Everybody wants to be somebody: nobody wants to grow." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"A person who does not mix with other people will not know how to help others. Such a person lacks knowledge about the way people think, their wants and their desires. Even if he wants to help others, he will not know what is good for them. When he wants to comply with the wishes of others, he will confuse them with his own wishes. Because he lacks knowledge about other people, he will not be able to say what is appropriate and acceptable even if he tries. His obstacle is not a lack of love for his fellow man, but a lack of understanding of others." - Avraham Grodzinski
"How few are our real wants! and how easy it is to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable." - Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
"Great wants proceed from great wealth; but they are undutiful children, for they sink wealth down to poverty." - Henry Home, Lord Kames
"The covetous man always wants." - Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
"Set about doing good to somebody. Put on your hat, and go and visit the sick and poor of your neighborhood; inquire into their circumstances, and minister to their wants. Seek out the desolate, and afflicted, and oppressed, and tell them of the consolations of religion. I have often tried this method, and have always found it the best medicine for a heavy heart." - Sidney Howard, fully Sidney Coe Howard
"One of the most useless of all things is to take a deal of trouble in providing against dangers that never come. How many toil to lay up riches which they never enjoy; to provide for exigencies that never happen; to prevent troubles that never come; sacrificing present comfort and enjoyment in guarding against the wants of a period they may never live to see." - William Jay
"In every adult there lurks a child - an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the human personality which wants to develop and become whole." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
"A person who performs good deeds because he wants to fulfill the Almighty’s wishes will be happy if he hears others are doing even more than him. If, however, one feels pain when hearing others have accomplished more than him in spiritual matters, it shows he is basically motivated by desire for personal aggrandizement." -
"He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur." - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"How few are our real wants! How easy it is to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable... He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur." - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!" - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"The most precious of all possessions, is power over ourselves; power to withstand trial, to bear suffering, to front danger; power over pleasure and pain; power to follow convictions, however resisted by menace and scorn; the power of calm reliance in scenes of darkness an storms. He that has not a mastery over his inclinations; he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger of never being good for anything." - John Locke
"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
"Anyone who wants to be cured of ignorance must confess it... Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry its progress, ignorance its end." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"He wins much who wants little." - Salomon Hermann Mosenthal, also Solomon Hermann Von Mosenthal
"True progress consists not so much in increasing our needs as in diminishing our wants." - Nikita Ivanovich Panin
"The mature man knows that he is likely to make mistakes. He wants to take responsibility for them. Only by facing his mistakes does he learn to act more responsibly." - Richard H. Rice, fully Richard Henry Rice
"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." - William Stekel
"A man lives because he wants to live. If he lacks this desire, he ceases to exist." - Yang Xianyi NULL
"A wise man never wants a weapon." - Nathan Bailey
"There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants - more than anything else - to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it will seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they will understand how important other things are - and have always been." - Joseph Brooks
"If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man." - Jean de La Bruyère
"Every other sin hath some pleasures annexed to it, or will admit of some excuse, but envy wants both. We should strive against it, for if indulged in it will be to us as a foretaste of hell upon earth." - Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton
"There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule." - Samuel Butler
"The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought." - William Ellery Channing
"There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read." - G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
"The person who wants to make it has to sweat. There are no short cuts. And you've got to have the guts to be hated." - Bette Davis, Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."" - Benjamin Franklin
"Our necessities never equal our wants." - Benjamin Franklin
"There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier." - Benjamin Franklin