This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity.
Character | Mediocrity | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |
Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL
He who dies for virtue does not perish.
To put Happiness in actions is to put it in things that are outside virtue and outside the Soul; for the Soul’s expression is not in action but in wisdom, in a contemplative operation within itself; and this, this alone, is Happiness.
Action | Character | Soul | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Happiness |
Never hesitate to ask where the acquisition of virtue is concerned.
The fountain of beauty is the heart, and every generous thought illustrates the walls of your chamber. If virtue accompanies beauty it is the heart's paradise; if vice be associate with it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fools furnace.
Beauty | Character | Heart | Man | Paradise | Soul | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Wise | Beauty | Thought | Vice |
The light of the understanding, humility kindleth and pride covereth.
Character | Humility | Light | Pride | Understanding |
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
Vice, the opposite of virtue, shows us more clearly what virtue is. Justice becomes more obvious when we have injustice to compare it to. Many such things are proved by their contraries.
Character | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Virtue | Virtue |
Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, aka Sir Benjamin Thompson or Count Benjamin Thompson Rumford
So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man, that it extends even to his moral character. Virtue never dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness who was a consummate villain.
Character | Cleanliness | Man | Virtue | Virtue |
Virtue is nothing but an act of loving that which is to be beloved, and that a t is prudence, from whence not to be removed by constraint is fortitude; not to be allured by enticements is temperance; not to be diverted by pride is justice.
Character | Constraint | Fortitude | Justice | Nothing | Pride | Prudence | Prudence | Virtue | Virtue |