This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Power to preserve under all circumstances the right, lawful opinion of what is and is not to be feared." - Plato NULL
"Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect. The man was born to do it, and his father was born to be the father of him and for this deed, and, by looking narrowly, you shall see there was no luck in the matter, but it was all a problem in arithmetic, or an experiment in chemistry." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances, Strong men believe in cause and effect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"In failing circumstances no man can be relied on to keep his integrity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Let me consider this as a resolution by which I pledge myself to act in all variety of circumstances and to which I must recur often in times of carelessness and temptation – to measure my conduct by the rule of conscience." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What is the matter with the world that it is so out of joint? Simply that men do not rule themselves but let circumstances rule them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Willpower should be understood to be the strength of mind which makes it capable of meeting success or failure with equanimity… Success develops arrogance, and the man’s spiritual progress is thus arrested. Failure, on the other hand, is beneficial, inasmuch as it opens the eyes of the man to his limitations and prepares him to surrender himself. Self-surrender is synonymous with eternal happiness. Therefore, one should try to gain the equipoise of mind under all circumstances: that is will-power." -
"We see processes like love and education as established circumstances rather than as complex temporal organisms whose lives depend on regular nourishment and renewal.... Like still cameras, our minds consistently convert motion into stasis." - Robert Grudin
"Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be... those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes... those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober -- minded men." - Socrates NULL
"The secret of meditation is to be conscious of each second of your existence and to keep the sun of awareness continually shining - in both the physical and psychological realms, in all circumstances, on each thing that arises." - Thich Nhất Hanh
"Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their education - what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it." - Thomas Carlyle
"Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstances, say that man is the architect of circumstances." - Thomas Carlyle
"Our mind, our choices, make us happy or sad. If we waited for outside circumstances to be perfect, then we would rarely be happy. We must choose happiness no matter what the circumstances. Only we have that power and no one else can decide for us." - Tom Brown, Jr.
"Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress... Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And there is always a choice to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determine whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate" -
"There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it." - William Hazlitt
"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are." - Anne Lamott
"Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favored by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune’s greedily coveted favors, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity." -
"A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying." - B. F. Skinner, fully Burrhus Frederic "B.F." Skinner
"What we call good sense in the conduct of life consists chiefly in that temper of mind which enables its possessor to view at all times, with perfect coolness and accuracy, all the various circumstances of his situation: so that each of them may produce its due impression on him, without any exaggeration arising from his own peculiar habits. But to a man of an ill-regulated imagination, external circumstances only serve as hints to excite his own thoughts, and the conduct he pursues has in general far less reference to his real situation than to some imaginary one in which he conceives himself to be placed: in consequence of which, while he appears to himself to be acting with the most perfect wisdom and consistency, he may frequently exhibit to others all the appearances of folly." - Dugald Stewart
"The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures. Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue." - Ted Kennedy, fully Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy
"The most important misunderstanding seems to me to lie in a confusion between the human necessities which I consider part of human nature, and the human necessities as they appear as drives, needs, passions, etc., in any given historical period. This division is not very different from Marx’s concept of "human nature in general", to be distinguished from "human nature as modified in each historical period". The same distinction exists in Marx when he distinguishes between "constant" or "fixed" drives and "relative" drives. The constant drives "exist under all circumstances and ... can be changed by social conditions only as far as form and direction are concerned". The relative drives "owe their origin only to a certain type of social organization"." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the ...moment." - Eugene Peterson
"The great thing however is, in the show of the temporal and the transient to recognize the substance which is immanent and the eternal which is present. For the work of Reason (which is synonymous with the Idea) when considered in its own actuality, is to simultaneously enter external existence and emerge with an infinite wealth of forms, phenomena and phases — a multiplicity that envelops its essential rational kernel with a motley outer rind with which our ordinary consciousness is earliest at home. It is this rind that the Concept must penetrate before Reason can find its own inward pulse and feel it still beating even in the outward phases. But this infinite variety of circumstances which is formed in this element of externality by the light of the rational essence shining in it — all this infinite material, with its regulatory laws — is not the object of philosophy....To comprehend what is, is the task of philosophy: and what is is Reason." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself — whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance — is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality — of what is essentially and ultimately true and real — of spirit as the true and essential being." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
" It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"Because anarchism is in its essence an anti-dogmatic and unstructured cluster of related attitudes, which does not depend for its existence on any enduring organization, it can flourish when circumstances are favourable and then, like a desert plant, lie dormant for seasons and even for years, waiting for the rains that will make it burgeon. Unlike an ordinary political faith, in which the church-party becomes the vehicle of the dogma, it does not need a movement to carry it forward." - George Woodcock
"Given ample time and rather simple circumstances not likely to be unique in the universe, there does seem to be considerable probability , perhaps even inevitability, in the progress from dissociated atoms to macromolecules. The further organization of those molecules into cellular life would seem, on the face of it, to have a far different, very much lower order of probability. It is not impossible, because we know it did happen at least once. " - George Gaylord Simpson
"Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful. " - Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron
"Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have." - H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
"The circumstances of your life have uniquely qualified you to make a contribution. And if you don't make that contribution, nobody else can make it." - Harold Kushner, fully Harold Samuel Kushner
"This world is so full of care and sorrow that it is a gracious debt we owe to one another to discover the bright crystals of delight hidden in somber circumstances and irksome tasks." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
"We feel God present in nature, whether in its awe or its beauty; and in human history, whether in its justice or its weird mysteriousness; and in the life of a good man, or the circumstances of a generous or noble act. Most of all we feel Him near when conscience, His inward messenger, speaks plainly and decisively to us." - Henry Parry Liddon
"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant. " - Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
"Never under any circumstances say that meditation and wisdom are different; they are one unity, not two things. Meditation itself is the substance of wisdom; wisdom itself is the function of meditation." - Dajian Hui-neng or Huineng
"Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your own profession. Do not indulge yourselves to judge of things by the first glimpse, or a short and superficial view of them; for this will fill the mind with errors and prejudices, and give it a wrong turn and ill habit of thinking, and make much work for retraction." - Isaac Watts
"In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act. " - Jacques Ellul
"Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man’s circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development." - James Allen
"The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." - James Truslow Adams
"Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations." - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
"Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry. " - Jean-Paul Sartre
"In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment." - Jeremy Taylor
"When we aren’t alert, we miss opportunities to improve ourselves. We should always watch for circumstances or situations that can help or harm us and be eager to learn from these encounters." - John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes." - Milton Friedman, fully John Milton Friedman