This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
People | Reputation | Thinking | Think |
Escaping with your reputation is better than escaping with your property.
Better | Property | Reputation |
Reputation is sometimes as wide as the horizon, when character is but the point of a needle. Character is what one really is; reputation what others believe him to be.
Character | Reputation |
A man's character is the reality of himself. His reputation is the opinion others have formed of him. Character is in him; reputation is from other people - that is the substance, this is the shadow.
A reputation for good judgment, for fair dealing, for truth, and for rectitude, is itself a fortune.
Fortune | Good | Judgment | Reputation | Truth |
James Froude, fully James Anthony Froude
High original genius is always ridiculed on its first appearance; most of all by those who have won themselves the highest reputation in working on the established lines. Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.
Appearance | Genius | Reputation | Taste |
There are two ways of establishing your reputation - to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will be invariably accompanied by the latter.
Men | Reputation | Will |
The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.
Conduct | Reputation |
A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only himself can damage that. His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity.
Character | Eternity | God | Man | Men | Reputation | Time | God |
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
Character | Reputation | Think |
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism - The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in. The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what is used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.
Character | Control | Cost | Danger | Freedom of speech | Freedom | People | Principles | Protest | Reputation | Right | Rights | Speech | Thought | Words | Danger | Afraid | Guilty | Thought |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
A superior man is ashamed of a reputation beyond his merits.
Man | Reputation |
Susan B. Anthony, fully Susan Brownell Anthony
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
A man’s reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.
Calumny | Man | Mercy | Reputation |
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
Reputation | Think |
All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurses arms. Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannons mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lind, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon dotard, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side, his youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. As You Like It (Jaques at II, vii)
Age | Ends | Good | Man | Men | Reputation | Time | Wise | World |
First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.
Better | Genius | Reputation |
Open your purse and your mouth cautiously; and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.
Reputation | Wealth |
Jonathan Schell, fully Jonathan Edward Schell
Now, in a widening sphere of decisions, the costs of error are so exorbitant that we need to act on theory alone, which is to say on prediction alone. It follows that the reputation of scientific prediction needs to be enhanced. But that can happen, paradoxically, only if scientists disavow the certainty and precision that they normally insist on. Above all, we need to learn to act decisively to forestall predicted perils, even while knowing that they may never materialize. We must take action, in a manner of speaking, to preserve our ignorance. There are perils that we can be certain of avoiding only at the cost of never knowing with certainty that they were real.
Cost | Error | Knowing | Need | Precision | Prediction | Reputation | Precision | Learn |