This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The only sin which we never forgive in each other is a difference of opinion.
If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.
There is no better means of arriving at a knowledge of our passions than to examine the difference which exists between soul and body in order to know to which of the two we must attribute each one of the functions which are within us.
The body, too, with yesterday’s excess burden’d and tired shall the pure soul depress.
Happiness and a life of deep fulfillment come when you commit yourself, from the very core of your soul, to spending your highest human talents on a purpose that makes a difference in others’ lives.
Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll
There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor.
Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference.
Accident |
Benjamin Collins Brodie, fully Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
It is attention, more than any difference between minds and men.—In this is the source of poetic genius, and of the genius of discovery in science.—It was this that led Newton to the invention of fluxions, and the discovery of gravitation, and Harvey to find out the circulation of the blood, and Davy to those views which laid the foundation of modern chemistry.
Discovery | Genius | Good | Invention | Nothing | Usefulness | World | Discovery |
Benjamin Collins Brodie, fully Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
Our minds are so constructed that we can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked all around it; and the mind that possesses this faculty in the highest degree of perfection will take cognizance of relations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference between the minds of different individuals. This is the history alike of the poetic genius and of the genius of discovery in science. “I keep the subject,” said Sir Isaac Newton, “constantly before me, and wait until the dawnings open by little and little into a full light.” It was thus that after long meditation he was led to the invention of fluxions, and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, and that those views were suggested by Davy which laid the foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which terminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies.
Abstract | Age | Ambition | Anticipation | Attention | Contentment | Death | Discovery | Disease | Ennui | Failure | Genius | History | Indolence | Intelligence | Invention | Little | Meditation | Men | Mind | Object | Old age | Perfection | Power | Will | Discovery |
There is no difference between knowledge and temperance: for he who knows what is good and embraces it, who knows what is bad and avoids it, is learned and temperate.
In a republic, we must learn to combine intensity of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction.
Learn |
Great is the difference betwixt a man's being frightened at, and humbled for his sins.
Man |
The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.
Determination | Distinction | Energy | Little | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Will |
A wounded conscience is often inflicted as a punishment for lack of true repentance; great is the difference betwixt a man’s being frightened at and humbled for his sins.
Conscience | Man | Punishment | Repentance |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous - and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight - and that, also, can shatter the world.