This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are no two things so much talked of, and so seldom seen, as virtue and the funds.
In an age remarkable for good reasoning and bad conduct, for sound rules and corrupt manners, when virtue fills our heads, but vice our hearts; when those who would fain persuade us that they are quite sure of heaven, appear in no greater hurry to go there than other folks, but put on the livery of the best master only to serve the worst; in an age when modesty herself is more ashamed of detection than delinquency; when independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend; and free thinking, not in thinking freely, but in being free from thinking; in an age when patriots will hold anything except their tongues; keep anything except their word; and lose nothing patiently except their character; to improve such an age must be difficult; to instruct it dangerous; and he stands no chance of amending it who cannot at the same time amuse it.
Age | Chance | Character | Conduct | Detection | Good | Heaven | Hurry | Manners | Modesty | Nothing | Sound | Thinking | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Vice |
It has been shrewdly said that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure which we do not deserve, and still more rare to despise praise, which we do. But that integrity that lives only on opinion would starve without it.
Abuse | Censure | Despise | Integrity | Men | Opinion | Praise | Virtue | Virtue |
Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may these patient angels hover around us, watching for the spell which is so soon forgotten!
Angels | Better | Heart | Life | Life | Memory | Nature | Soul | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |
He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place; otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.
Cost | Difficulty | Energy | Enough | Labor | Little | Nothing | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Vice |
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practice in himself can willingly believe in another.
Forgiveness | Practice | Self | Self-denial | Virtue | Virtue |
There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.
There is a paradox in pride – it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from become so.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
Government | Means | Virtue | Virtue | Government |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The perfecting of self implies virtue; the perfecting of others, wisdom. These two, virtue and wisdom, are the moral qualities of the hsing, or nature, embodying the Tao, or Right Way.
Nature | Qualities | Right | Self | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |
Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the small and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure.
Elegance | Force | Life | Life | Pleasure | Regulation | Taste | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |
Great souls are not those which have less passion and more virtue than common souls, but only those which have greater designs.
The name of virtue serves self-interest just as usefully as vices... Self-interest, though made responsible for all our crimes, often deserves the credit of our good actions.