This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The coward... is a despariging sort of person; for he fears everything. The brave man, on the other hand, has the opposite disposition; for confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition... Courage is a mean with respect to things that inspire confidence or fear.
What roots are to a tree, belief is to the soul. Great oak trees have great roots. Great souls have great faith. However, the faith that holds has spiritual qualities. The stable man has that intangible confidence in himself with capacities to be and to do, a recognition of God who may transform and empower his life, and a determined effort to realize man's highest ideals.
Belief | Confidence | Effort | Faith | God | Ideals | Life | Life | Man | Qualities | Soul | God |
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult tasks as if they were easy: in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
There is no excuse for deceiving children. And when, as must happen in conventional families, they find that their parents have lied, they lose confidence in them and feel justified in lying to them.
Children | Confidence | Lying | Parents |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Without the confidence of the people no government can stand.
Confidence | Government | People | Government |
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. So start each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for. Your future will depend very largely on the thoughts you think today. So think thoughts of hope and confidence and love and success.
Confidence | Day | Future | Hope | Love | Success | Thinking | Will | Happiness | Think |
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
The confidence which we have in ourselves engenders the greatest part of that we have in others.
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
This is what I found out about religion. It gives you courage to make the decisions you must make in a crisis, and then the confidence to leave the result to Higher Power. Only by trust in God can a man carrying responsibility find repose.
Confidence | Courage | God | Man | Power | Religion | Repose | Responsibility | Trust | God |
Sincerity is an opening of the heart; we find it in very few persons; and that which we see ordinarily is only a cunning deceit to attract the confidence of others.
Confidence | Cunning | Deceit | Heart | Sincerity |
It is not so much our friend's help that helps us as the confidence of their help.
Confidence | Friend |
They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.
Ability | Achievement | Awareness | Confidence | Effort | Failure | Inspiration | Misfortune | Patience | Persistence | Will | Talent | Failure | Awareness |
For a wrongdoer to be undetected is difficult; and for him to have confidence that his concealment will continue is impossible.
Concealment | Confidence | Will |
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
An integral part of justice is the confidence which citizens have in it, and it is this which requires that proceedings shall be public.
Confidence | Justice | Public |
Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
The public does not in the long run respect leaders who mirror its own insecurities or see only the symptoms of crises rather than the long-term trends. The role of the leader is to assume the burden of acting on the basis of a confidence in his own assessment of the direction of events and how they can be influenced. Failing that, crises will multiply, which is another way of saying that a leader has lost control over events.
Confidence | Control | Events | Public | Respect | Will | Respect | Leader |
Shame goes with poverty, but confidence with wealth.
Confidence | Poverty | Shame | Wealth |
One who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.
Superstition is but the fear of belief, religion is the confidence and trust. The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home.
Belief | Church | Confidence | Fear | Religion | Superstition | Trust | World |