This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A fortune is usually the greatest of misfortunes to children. It takes the muscles out of the limbs, the brain out of the head, and virtue out of the heart... In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.
Enthusiasm is always connected with the senses, whatever be the object that excites it. The true strength of virtue is serenity of mind, combined with a deliberate and steadfast determination to execute her laws. That is the healthful condition of the moral life; on the other hand, enthusiasm, even when excited by representation of goodness, is a brilliant but feverish flow which leaves only exhaustion and languor behind.
Determination | Enthusiasm | Life | Life | Mind | Object | Serenity | Strength | Virtue | Virtue |
It is very questionable, in my mind, how far we have the right to judge one of another, since there is born within every man the germs of both virtue and vice. The development of one or the other is contingent upon circumstances.
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.
Benevolence | Death | Fear | Generosity | Life | Life | Pride |
Morality... must have the more power over the human heart the more purely it is exhibited. Whence it follows that, if the law of morality and the image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any influence at all on our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in their purity as motives, unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it is in suffering that they display themselves most nobly.
Display | Heart | Influence | Law | Morality | Motives | Power | Prosperity | Purity | Suffering | Virtue | Virtue |
When the thinking man has conquered the temptations to vice, and is conscious of having done his (often hard) duty, he finds himself in a state of peace and satisfaction which may well be called happiness, in which virtue is her own reward.
No virtue is ever so strong that it is beyond temptation.
Temptation | Virtue | Virtue |
There is a paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from being so.
Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart.
The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous and mutually beget each other.
We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty and charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. So many people seem to go about their life’s business with their eyes shut. Indeed, they object to other people keeping their eyes open. Unable to lay themselves, they dislike the play of others.
Adventure | Beauty | Business | Life | Life | Object | People | Play | World | Business | Beauty |
There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every conquest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her; and zealously to labor after her ways is to receive them.
Conquest | Difficulty | Labor | Life | Life | Power | Receive | Virtue | Virtue |
We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.