This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Customs are made for customary circumstances and customary characters... The mind itself is bowed to the yoke; even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds: they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have not nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own.
Choice | Circumstances | Conduct | Conformity | Eccentricity | Feelings | Growth | Mind | Nature | Peculiarity | People | Pleasure | Taste | Thought | Wishes | Following | Thought |
Customs are made for customary circumstances; even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds: they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have not nature to follow. Whatever crushes individuality is despotism. [And] I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.
Choice | Circumstances | Conduct | Conformity | Eccentricity | Force | Individuality | Nature | Peculiarity | People | Pleasure | Right | Taste | Thought | Following | Thought |
The contemplation of the divine Being, and the exercise of virtue, are in their own nature so far from excluding all gladness of heart, that they are perpetual sources of it.
Contemplation | Heart | Nature | Virtue | Virtue | Contemplation |
From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.
Ideas | Life | Life | Mind | Understanding |
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
Culture is a massive exercise in restraint, inhibition, and curtailment of joy on behalf of pseudo-safety and grim necessities. We live out our lives in the long shadows it casts.
Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
In the field of modern business, so rich in opportunity for the exercise of man's finest and most varied mental faculties and moral qualities, mere money-making cannot be regarded as the legitimate end... since with the conduct of business human happiness or misery is inextricably interwoven.
Business | Conduct | Man | Money | Opportunity | Qualities | Business | Happiness |
M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom.
Commitment | Love | Wisdom |
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism - The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in. The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what is used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.
Character | Control | Cost | Danger | Freedom of speech | Freedom | People | Principles | Protest | Reputation | Right | Rights | Speech | Thought | Words | Danger | Afraid | Guilty | Thought |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
Each part of life has its own pleasures. Each has its own abundant harvest, to be garnered in season. We may grow old in body, but we need never grow old in mind and spirit. We must make a stand against old age. We must atone for its faults by activity. We must exercise the mind as we exercise the body, to keep it supple and buoyant. Life may be short, but it is long enough to live honorably and well. Old age is the consummation of life, rich in blessings.
Age | Blessings | Body | Enough | Life | Life | Mind | Need | Old age | Spirit | Old |
Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.
God... created man; He has also created the circumstances under which he lives and acts; but still He has endowed man with discretion to choose how to act... And as he can exercise his discretion or his will in doing a thing or not doing it, he is responsible for his own deeds, and made to suffer the consequences.
Circumstances | Consequences | Deeds | Discretion | God | Man | Will |
Oscar Wilde, pen name for Fingal O'Flahertie Wills
All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.
The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy quite as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or exercise or praise.
Freedom | Little | Praise | Understanding | Wants |
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
Let exercise alternate with rest.
Rest |
Harvard alumni found that every hour spent on exercise added three hours to the participants’ lives.
William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
A man must often exercise or fast or take physic, or be sick.
Man |
William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor.
Abstinence | Man |