This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.
Advice | Prosperity | Wisdom |
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
Adversity | Prosperity | Taste | Wisdom |
As full ears load and lay down corn, so does too much fortune bend and break the mind. It deserves to be considered, too, as another disadvantage, that affliction moves pity, and reconciles our very enemies, but prosperity provokes envy, and loses us our very friends.
Affliction | Envy | Fortune | Mind | Pity | Prosperity | Wisdom |
Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton
If adversity hath killed his thousands, prosperity hath killed his ten thousands; therefore adversity is to be preferred. The one deceives, the other instructs; the one is miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity and commend it in their precepts.
Adversity | Happy | Prosperity | Wisdom |
A truth's prosperity is like a jest's; it lies in the ear of him that hears it.
Prosperity | Truth | Wisdom |
In prosperity prepare for a change; in adversity hope for one.
Adversity | Change | Hope | Prosperity | Wisdom |
He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.
The strongest single factor in prosperity consciousness is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it
Consciousness | Esteem | Prosperity | Self | Self-esteem | Will | Wisdom |
Were we to talk less about the problems which face us, and thought more about facing those problems, the evasive corner which obscured prosperity would be more accessible.
Problems | Prosperity | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
A weak mind sinks under prosperity as well as under adversity. A strong and deep one has two highest tides, when the moon is at full, and when there is no moon.
Adversity | Mind | Prosperity | Wisdom |
Faith is the backbone of the social and the foundation of the commercial fabric; remove faith between man and man, and society and commerce fall to pieces. There is not a happy home on earth but stands on faith; our heads are pillowed on it, we sleep at night in its arms with greater security for the safety of our lives, peace, and prosperity than bolts and bars can give.
Commerce | Earth | Faith | Happy | Man | Peace | Prosperity | Security | Society | Wisdom | Society | Commerce |
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
Adversity is wont to reveal genius, prosperity to hide it.
Adversity | Genius | Prosperity | Wisdom |
It is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit.
We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.
Ambition | Distinguish | Prosperity | Wisdom | Ambition | Happiness |
Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes to bitter consciousness during adversity.
Adversity | Consciousness | Prosperity | Remorse | Wisdom |
Depend on this one fact: The future of mankind, peace, progress and prosperity must be finally determined by the extent to which men can be brought to a state of common and honest understanding.
Future | Mankind | Men | Peace | Progress | Prosperity | Understanding | Wisdom |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but the greater well-being of all that is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is His eye, advancement; what afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive, then, to raise myself to this point of the divine contemplation and thence to view and judge the concerns of men.
Beauty | Contemplation | Equality | Greatness | Justice | Man | Men | Prosperity | Wisdom | Contemplation |