This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Constitution of the Five Nations NULL
With endless patience you shall carry out your duty, and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall lodge in your mind, and all your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation. In all your deliberations in the Council, in your efforts at lawmaking, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not away the warnings of any others, if they should chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law, which is just and right. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the earth - the unborn of the future Nation.
Anger | Character | Deliberation | Duty | Earth | Error | Firmness | Fury | Future | Law | Mind | Oblivion | Patience | People | Present | Right | Self | Self-interest | Tenderness | Words | Wrong |
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphans - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Battle | Care | Character | Charity | Firmness | God | Malice | Nations | Peace | Right | Work | God |
Thomas Erskine, Lord Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine
That which is called firmness in a king is called obstinacy in a donkey.
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising by mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness the bitterest blast of adversity.
Adversity | Dependence | Firmness | Force | Husband | Life | Life | Misfortune | Nothing | Weakness | Wisdom |
It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity.
Character | Firmness | Gentleness |
Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues - constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness - are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so jut an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.
Cause | Constancy | Excess | Fidelity | Firmness | Fortitude | Magnanimity |
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.
Perseverance | Will |
Judge of thine improvement, not by what thou speakest or writest, but by the firmness of thy mind, and the government of thy passions and affections.
Firmness | Government | Improvement | Mind | Government |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.