This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If you are angry at someone, try to avoid looking at him while you are angry and you will calm down much faster.
Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond
A man knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them he rather finds a relaxation of mind than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character
Jefferson Davis, known as Jeff Davis
Truthfulness is a corner-stone of character, and if it be not firmly laid in youth, there will ever after be a weak spot in the foundation.
Life in this world is a very important reality, but it is not the ultimate reality... True growth in this world always calls for a dying to my own sinfulness, individualism and selfishness so that I might come closer to my true self in relationship to all others and to God. Thus, in the end, life and death are not diametrically opposed. Life involves a dying and dying is a way of life.
Character | Death | God | Growth | Important | Life | Life | Reality | Relationship | Self | Selfishness | World |
If you make an effort to help everyone you meet, you will feel close to everyone. A stranger is someone you have not yet helped. Doing acts of kindness for everyone you can fills your world with friends and loved ones.
Everyone suffers. But many do not take it to heart that the suffering comes as a punishment for transgressions, rather they consider it accidental. The proper attitude is that suffering is an atonement. With this realization a person appreciates that suffering in this world saves him suffering in the next.
Character | Heart | Punishment | Suffering | World |
Some people gauge their value by what they own. But in reality the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish and that no one has a right to take them away from you. How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to. Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.
Ambition | Character | Experience | Illusion | Object | People | Possessions | Reality | Right | Suffering | Will | Ambition | Value |
Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen
The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.
Character | Compassion | Heart | Mind | Persuasion |
Jeff Donnell, born Jean Marie Donnell
The man who follows the crowd will never be followed by a crowd.