This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
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 |
Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart.
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 |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
[The] men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room.
Bible | Business | Computer | Growth | Men | Religion | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Business | Bible |
Virtue cannot be fully attained without liberty and the absence of liberty proves that virtue in its full protection is wanting. Therefore a man is free in proportion to the measure of his virtues, and the extent to which he is free determines what his virtues can accomplish.
John Rawls, fully John Bordley Rawls
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.
Citizenship | Freedom | Good | Justice | Reason | Right | Rights | Society | Thought | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Society | Loss |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
These men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room.
Bible | Business | Computer | Growth | Men | Religion | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Business | Bible |
Honor's a sacred tie, the noble mind's distinguish perfection, that aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her, and imitates her actions where she is not.
Distinguish | Honor | Mind | Perfection | Sacred | Virtue | Virtue |