This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth tell you I do not nor I cannot love you? A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iv, Scene 2
Nor is it a valid objection to say "that, by such a rule, we are making every man a judge in his own case." In the courts of morality it cannot be otherwise; a pure and just system of thinking admits not of the existence of any infallible judge to whom we can appeal. It might indeed be further objected "that, by this rule, men will be called upon to judge in the moment of passion and partiality, instead of being referred to the past decisions of their cooler reason." But this also is an inconvenience inseparable from human affairs. We must and ought to keep our selves open, to the last moment, to the influence of such considerations as may appear worthy to influence us. To teach men that they must not trust their own understandings is not the best scheme for rendering them virtuous and consistent. On the contrary, to inure them to consult their understanding is the way to render it worthy of becoming their director and guide.
But such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out. The more commonplace happinesses which we get are 'reliefs,' occasioned by our momentary escapes from evils either experienced or threatened. But in its most characteristic embodiments, religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape. It cares no longer to escape. It consents to the evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice — inwardly it knows it to be permanently overcome. ... In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there — that is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
Day | Death | Insight | Little | Man | Method | Mind | Patience | Psychology | Style | Success | Superiority | Tenacity | Thought | Uncertainty | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Thought |
Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet
Power is, therefore, a word which we may use both in an active and in a passive signification; and in psychology we may apply it both to the active faculty and to the passive capacity of the mind.
Absolute | Ends | Indifference | Knowledge | Reason | Science | Truths |
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.
Self-interest | Virtue | Virtue |
There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.
The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice.
Self-interest | Virtue | Virtue |
Weakness is the only fault that is incorrigible.
O my love, my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. Henry VIII (Wolsey at III, ii)
Beauty | Looks | Play | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Youth | Youth | Beauty |