This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from this excessive self-love. For the lover is blinded by the object loved; so that he passes a wrong judgment on what is just, good and beautiful, thinking that he ought always to honor what belongs to himself in preference to truth. For he who intends to be a great man ought to love, neither himself nor his own thins, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by himself, or by another.
Cause | Good | Honor | Judgment | Love | Man | Object | Preference | Self | Self-love | Thinking | Truth | Wrong |
The principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live - that principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honor, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honor and dishonor, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work.
Dishonor | Good | Honor | Love | Men | Sense | Wealth | Work |
Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. No god will help. We shall find their teams going the other way; every god will leave us. Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote - justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.
Freedom | God | Honor | Justice | Knowledge | Love | Will | Work | God |
It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. I knew a man of simple habits and earnest character who never put out his hands nor opened his lips to court the public, and having survived several rotten reputations of younger men, honor came at last and sat down with him upon his private bench from which he had never stirred.
Character | Honor | Man | Men | Opinion | Public | Self | Solitude | World |
Let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in bed and board; but let truth and love and honor and courtesy flow in all thy deeds.
The secret of genius is...first, last, midst, and without end to honor every truth by use.
The secret of genius is… first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
Experience | Honor | Practice | Reality | World |
Adi Shankara, aka Śaṅkara Bhagavatpādācārya and Ādi Śaṅkarācārya
What is hell? To live in slavery to others. How is heaven attained? The attainment of heaven is the freedom from cravings. What is a person’s duty? To do good to all beings. What are worthless as soon as they are won? Honor and fame. What brings happiness? The friendship of the holy. What destroys craving? Realization of one’s true self. Who are our enemies? Our sense-organs, when they are uncontrolled. Who are our friends? Our sense-organs, when they are controlled. Who has overcome the world? He who has conquered his own mind.
Attainment | Duty | Fame | Freedom | Good | Heaven | Hell | Honor | Mind | Self | Sense | Slavery | World | Friendship |
Philip Sidney, fully Sir Philip Sidney
To be ambitious of true honor and of the real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, place, ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court.
Glory | Honor | Little | Nature | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue |
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
Experience | Honor | Practice | Reality | World |
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
No matter how burning the thirst, we must always take the time to honor the gift of water, for it is sacred. It is a gift of life. It is in the times of dire thirst, when the body craves the water the most, we should especially take the time for prayer and thanksgiving... If you do not honor and cherish the waters, then how can you ever expect others to?
In everyday life there are always opportunities to honor both separateness and togetherness.