This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
The injury done to character is greater than can be estimated.
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley
Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.
He who proclaims the existence of the Infinite, and none can avoid it — accumulates in that affirmation more of the supernatural than is to be found in all the miracles of all the religions; for the notion of the Infinite presents that double character that forces itself upon us and yet is incomprehensible. When this notion seizes upon our understanding we can but kneel ... I see everywhere the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the world; through it the supernatural is at the bottom of every heart. The idea of God is a form of the idea of the Infinite. As long as the mystery of the infinite weighs on human thought, temples will be erected for the worship of the Infinite, whether God is called Brahma, Allah, Jehovah, or Jesus; and on the pavement of these temples, men will be seen kneeling, prostrated, annihilated by the thought of the Infinite.
Character | Existence | God | Inevitable | Men | Miracles | Mystery | Thought | Understanding | Will | Worship | God | Thought |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life -- particularly human life -- such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.
Capacity | Character | Control | Desire | Evil | Kill | Life | Life | People | Child | Think |
M. C. Swabey, fully Marie Taylor Collins Swabey
Whereas the comic confronts simply logical contradictions, the tragic confronts a moral predicament. Not minor matters of true and false but crucial questions of right and wrong, good and evil face the tragic character in a tragic situation.
Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.
Character | Conduct | Conscience | Enthusiasm | Good | Honor |
The only equitable manner in my opinion, of judging the character of a man is to examine if there are personal calculations in his conduct; if there are not, we may blame his manner of judging, but we are not the less bound to esteem him.
Character isn't what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context
Character | Circumstance | Think |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
As for myself, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as the most valuable of all human possessions, no other being equally suited to the moral nature of man, or so applicable to every state and circumstance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I lay it down as a fundamental axiom that "true Friendship can only subsist between those who are animated by the strictest principles of honour and virtue." When I say this, I would not be thought to adopt the sentiments of those speculative moralists who pretend that no man can justly be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that state of absolute perfection which constitutes, according to their ideas, the character of genuine wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps, in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any useful purpose of society, as it supposes a degree of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of rising.
Absolute | Character | Man | Mortal | Nature | Opinion | Perfection | Principles | Prosperity | Purpose | Purpose | Thought | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Friendship | Thought |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
When I reflect on the nature of the soul, it seems to me by far more difficult and obscure to determine its character while it is in the body, a strange domicile, than to imagine what it is when it leaves it, and has arrived in the empyreal regions, in its own and proper home.
Marquis de Sade, born Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
Mary McLeod Bethune, fully Mary Jane McLeod Bethune
The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.
Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
In a single lifetime, I have seen Americans split the atom, abolish Jim Crow, eliminate the scourge of polio, win the Cold War, plant our flag on the surface of the moon, map the human genetic code, & belatedly recognize the talents of women, minorities, the disabled once relegated to the shadows. If we reaffirm these timeless and unchangeable truths, if we choose life and liberty, compassion and service, character and faith, we will honor those who came before us, and inspire the children of tomorrow.
Character | Children | Compassion | Honor | Life | Life | Will |
Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
Positive emotion alienated from the exercise of character leads to emptiness, inauthenticity, to depression and, as we age, to the gnawing realization that we are fidgeting until we die.
Character | Depression |
Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber
The modern man is in general, even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance for culture and national character which they deserve. But one can, of course, not aim to replace a one-sided materialistic with an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of history. Each is equally possible, but each, if it does not serve as the preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation, accomplish equally little in the interest of historical truth.
Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber
Since Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the character of a religion essentially free from magic, it rendered an important service from the point of view of economic history. For the dominance of magic outside the sphere in which Christianity has prevailed in one of the most serious obstructions to the rationalization of economic life. Magic involves a stereotyping of technology and economic relations. When attempts were made in China to inaugurate the building of railroads and factories a conflict with geomancy ensued ... Similar is the relation to capitalism of the castes in India. Every new technical process which an Indian employs signifies for him first of all that he leaves his caste and falls into another, necessarily lower ... An additional fact is that every caste makes every other caste impure. In consequence, workmen who dare not accept a vessel filled with water from each other's hands, cannot be employed together in the same factory room. Obviously, capitalism could not develop in an economic group thus bound hand and foot by magical means.
Capitalism | Character | Important | Magic | Religion | Service | Technology |
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson
The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.