This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is no such thing as a "self-made" man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.
Elizabeth Fry, fully Elizabeth "Betsy" Fry, née Gurney
The encouragement of industry and frugality among the poor, by visits at their own inhabitations; the relief of real distress, whether arising from sickness or other causes; and the prevention.
Character | Frugality | Industry | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |
Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.
If those about him will talk to him often about the Stories he has read and hear him tell them, it will, besides other Advantages, add Encouragement and Delight to his Reading, when he finds there is some Use and Pleasure in it.
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
The aim and end of war is murder; the weapons employed in war are espionage, treachery and the encouragement of treachery, the ruining of a country, the plundering and robbing of its inhabitants for the maintenance of the army, and trickery and lying which all appear under the heading of the art of war. The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom – in other words, a rigorous discipline – enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness.
Absence | Art | Cruelty | Discipline | Freedom | Ignorance | Inactivity | Lying | Murder | Treachery | War | Weapons | Words | World | Art |
The finest gift you can give anyone is encouragement. Yet, almost no one gets the encouragement they need to grow to their full potential. If everyone received the encouragement they need to grow, the genius in most everyone would blossom and the world would produce abundance beyond the wildest dreams.
Quiet and unacclaimed acts are, to me, the real margin of greatness. Greatness is not in popularity, wealth, or long life, as most people believe. Real greatness is in simplicity and supportive words. It is in firm encouragement and gentle patience. It is in finding god in the midst of the turmoil of the marketplace, and remembering His goodness during hardship. No, greatness is not always found in those whom the world calls its heroes, but in the unheard of saints who unselfishly serve their families, lend a kind ear to a friend in despair, and lovingly see the Best in those who have become too accustomed to seeing themselves as mediocre.
Despair | Friend | God | Greatness | Life | Life | Patience | People | Popularity | Quiet | Simplicity | Turmoil | Wealth | Words | World | God |
Most of us, swimming against tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement and we'll make the goal. Say "Thank you!" whenever you think of it. Say "Nice job!" to that workman who put extra effort into his task. Say "Atta boy!" to the fellow who is struggling through in the face of odds. You'll get a whale of a lot of joy out of life that way. And people will love you.
Effort | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Need | Nothing | People | Praise | Will | World | Trouble | Think |
There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend.
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.
Truth |
THE lessons of fear which the child receives from its parents are intensified by the methods employed at the school in which he receives his education and life-training. We glory in the fact that we have made great strides in the science of education, that we are more practical in the choice of subjects for study, that we have a deeper insight into the soul of the child. And yet, in our method of imparting knowledge and in the relations between teacher and pupil, we can boast of but little progress. We still look upon the child as a more or less unwilling receptacle that must be stuffed with learning. The teacher is still a being to be feared, the school room still a prison house, and learning a punishment. Our system of education is still based on reward and punishment. A high mark is still the encouragement for zeal in study, while the backward student is haunted by the prospect of a low grade. The child, under present methods, prepares his lessons either in order to gain the reward of a high mark, or for fear of the contempt and humiliation that accompanies a low grade. In other words, he works not because of the intrinsic interest of his work but in the hope of reward or in the fear of punishment. The first motive breeds the harmful spirit of competition in the young mind.
Choice | Competition | Contempt | Education | Fear | Glory | Hope | Insight | Knowledge | Learning | Little | Method | Order | Parents | Present | Prison | Reward | Science | Soul | Spirit | System | Work | Zeal | Child | Teacher |
It is in the time of trouble, when some to whom we may have looked for consolation and encouragement regard us with coldness, and others, perhaps, treat us with hostility, that the warmth of the friendly heart and the support of the friendly hand acquire increased value and demand additional gratitude.
Consolation | Heart | Regard | Time | Value |
It is important that when you go into business for yourself that you enjoy what you do and be fully committed to the endeavor. If you are fully committed to the task, you can achieve anything. Anything that you can see, conceive, and achieve you can believe.
When God hath sent a sharp disease, as a messenger to bind men to their beds and make an interruption of their sinful pleasures, their mouths are full of promises of a new life, in hope to escape the just vengeance of God: the sense of hell, which strikes strongly upon them, makes them full of such pretended resolutions when they howl upon their beds. But if God be pleased in his patience to give them a respite, to take off the chains wherewith he seemed to be binding them for destruction, and recruit their strength, they are more earnest in their sins than they were in their promises of a reformation, as if they had got the mastery of God, and had outwitted him.
Blessings | Change | Day | God | Man | Mind | Promise | Reason | Will | God |
As when a man comes into a palace, built according to the exactest rule of art, and with an unexceptionable conveniency for the inhabitants, he would acknowledge both the being and skill of the builder; so whosoever shall observe the disposition of all the parts of the world, their connection, comeliness, the variety of seasons, the swarms of different creatures, and the mutual offices they render to one another, cannot conclude less, than it was contrived by an infinite skill, effected by infinite power, and governed by infinite wisdom. None can imagine a ship to be orderly conducted without a pilot; nor the parts of the world to perform their several functions without a wise guide; considering the members of the body cannot perform theirs, without the active presence of the soul. The atheist, then, is a fool to deny that which every creature in his constitution asserts, and thereby renders himself unable to give a satisfactory account of that constant uniformity in the motions of the creatures.
There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Freedom | Good | Government | Nothing | Past | People | Principles | Reward | Theories | Government | Think |