This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Our best hope, both of a tolerable political harmony and of an inner peace, rests upon our ability to observe the limits of human freedom even while we responsibly exploit its creative possibilities.
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Wisdom consists in the ability to discriminate between the probable and improbable, and in being reconciled to the inevitable.
Ability | Inevitable | Wisdom |
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
Ability | Confidence | Education | Self | Self-confidence | Temper |
Perhaps more than any other single factor, the intimate alchemy between the healer and the patient helps mobilize the body's natural resources. The mere presence of a healer often evokes hope in the patient and an expectation of recovery. When the two people create a partnership based on compassion, trust, and shared decision-making, and when the relationship nurtures the patient's hope for a positive outcome, even seemingly incurable diseases sometimes go into remission.... insistently restoring the human heart to the practice of medicine. Rather than treating patients as disease processes, they risk bringing their full humanness to the therapeutic encounter. They not only call on their technological expertise, but on the inner qualities practiced by healers from time immemorial: patience, humility, compassion, and an ability to inspire and mobilize their patients' healing resources.
Ability | Alchemy | Body | Compassion | Decision | Disease | Expectation | Heart | Hope | Humility | Patience | People | Practice | Qualities | Relationship | Risk | Time | Trust | Expectation |
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Ability |
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other.
Ability | Compassion | Love | Suffering | Understanding |
Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned, and however early a person's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that they learn thoroughly.
Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an
The sages do not consider that making no mistake is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of a person lies in their ability to correct their mistakes and continually to make a new person of themselves.
Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valour.
Better | Cowardice | Discretion | Prudence | Prudence |
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness: ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.
Ability | Audacity | Courage | Cowardice | Moderation | Question | Moderation |
Regardless of how you have viewed events in the past, you have the ability to learn to view things with a calm and peaceful attitude. Instead of looking at events and situations as overwhelming, you can look at them as interesting and challenging experiences. Give up your demands of how you would have like anything to be and deal with what actually is.
The realization that everyone perceives things differently, whether greatly or slightly, is a very important principle for dealing effectively with others. The greater your understanding of someone else’s perception of reality, the greater your ability to communicate effectively with him.
Ability | Important | Perception | Reality | Understanding |
C. P. Snow, fully Charles Percy "C.P." Snow
Judgment is the ability to think of many matters at once, in their interdependence, their related importance, and their consequences.
Ability | Consequences | Judgment | Think |
Happiness is a skill that can be learned. To acquire this skill it is necessary to master: the ability to focus on happiness-producing thoughts instead of those which cause unhappiness and the ability to evaluate events and situations as positive instead of negative, or at least lower the degree of negativity... The person with greater control over his thoughts will have greater control over his emotions.
Ability | Cause | Control | Emotions | Events | Focus | Skill | Unhappiness | Will |
Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Ability | Experience | Unique | Learn |
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Ability | Change | Intelligence |
David J. Schwartz, fully David Joseph Schwartz
The test of a successful person is not an ability to eliminate all problems before they arise, but to meet and work out difficulties when they do arise. We must be willing to make an intelligent compromise with perfection lest we wait forever before taking action. It's still good advice to cross bridges as we come to them.
Ability | Action | Advice | Good | Perfection | Problems | Work |