This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Roger L'Estrange, fully Sir Roger L'Estrange
Men are not to be judged by their looks, habits, and appearances; but by the character of their lives and conversations, and by their works. It is better to be praised by one's own works than by the words of another.
Our inward values and judgments are based on pleasure, not on any great, tremendous principles, but just on pleasure... The active principle of our life is pleasure.
Character | Life | Life | Pleasure | Principles |
The manner of giving shows the character of the giver more than the gift itself.
There is no right without parallel duty, no liberty without the supremacy of the law, no high destiny without earnest perseverance, no greatness without self-denial.
Character | Destiny | Duty | Greatness | Law | Liberty | Perseverance | Right | Self | Self-denial |
The influence of individual character extends from generation to generation. The world is molded by it.
Character | Individual | Influence | World |
One of the marks of true greatness is the ability to develop greatness in others.
The way to educate youngsters is to elevate them by pointing out the greatness that can be theirs if they utilize their potential.
Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstances, it would be nearer the mark to say man is the architect of circumstance. It is character which builds an existence out of circumstance.
Character | Circumstances | Existence | Man |
Sometimes great life-changing values come to us in brief moments of contact with high-potential personalities.
Bruno Lessing, pseudonymn for Randolph Edgar Block
The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness - one who loves life, and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a golden temper, and steadfast as an anchor.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
An ardent love and admiration of virtue seems to imply the existence of something opposite to it, and it seems highly probably that the same beauty of form and substance, the same perfection of character could not be generated without the impressions of disapprobation which arise from the spectacle of moral evil.
Admiration | Beauty | Character | Evil | Existence | Love | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | Beauty |
All else failing, a man's character may be inferred from nothing so surely as the jest he takes in bad part.
Every desire for power, ability, wisdom, harmony, life, greatness will impress itself upon the subconscious and will cause the thing desired to be produced in the great within. What is produced in the within will come forth into expression in the personality; therefore, by knowing how to impress the subconscious, man may give his personal self any quality desired, in any quantity desired. What man may desire to become, that he can become, and the art of directing and impressing the subconscious is the secret. The perpetual awakening of the great within will produce a greatness, because to the powers and the possibilities of the great within there is no limit, neither is there any end.
Ability | Art | Awakening | Cause | Character | Desire | Greatness | Harmony | Knowing | Life | Life | Man | Personality | Power | Self | Will | Wisdom | Art |