This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is no passion so distressing as fear, which gives us great pain and makes us appear contemptible in our own eyes to the last degree. Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
Character | Fear | Government | Men | Order | Pain | Passion |
When you have overcome one temptation, you must be ready to enter the lists with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. A man had need to fear this most of all, that he fears not at all.
Character | Danger | Distrust | Fear | Man | Mother | Need | Security | Sense | Temptation |
We believe easily what we fear or what we desire.
Acts of virtue ripen into habits; and the goodly and permanent result is the formation or establishment of a virtuous character.
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
If thou takes virtue for the rule of life, and valuest thyself upon acting in all things comfortably thereto, thou wilt have no cause to envy lords and princes; for blood is inherited, but virtue is common property and may be acquired by all; it has, moreover, an intrinsic worth, which blood has not.
Cause | Character | Envy | Life | Life | Property | Rule | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |
Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely to be met with in seasons of calm and unruffled prosperity.—It flourishes in adversity, kindles in the hour of danger, and awakens to deeds of renown.—The terrors of persecution only serve to quicken the energy of its purposes.—It swells in proud integrity, and, great in the purity of its cause, it can scatter defiance amidst hosts of enemies.
Character | Deeds | Defiance | Energy | Enthusiasm | Prosperity | Purity | Virtue | Virtue | Deeds |
Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation.
Character | Forbearance | Magnanimity | Obligation | Practice | Thankfulness | Virtue | Virtue |
Thousands of men breathe, move, and live, pass off the stage of life, and are heard of no more. Why? they do not partake of good in the world, and none were blessed by them; none could point to them as the means of their redemption; not a line they wrote, not a word they spake, could be recalled; and so they perished: their light went out in darkness, and they were not remembered more than insects of yesterday. Will you thus live and die, O man immortal? Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name, in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year: you will never be forgotten. No! your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind you as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.
Character | Darkness | Deeds | Good | Life | Life | Light | Man | Means | Men | Redemption | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Will | World | Deeds | Blessed |
All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self-determination.
Action | Character | Determination | Energy | Individual | Self | Self-determination | Virtue | Virtue |
Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith
Humanity is much more shown in our conduct towards animals, where we are irresponsible except to heaven, than towards our fellow-creatures, where we are restrained by the laws, by public opinion, and fear of retaliation.
Character | Conduct | Fear | Heaven | Humanity | Opinion | Public | Retaliation |
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write you name, in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.
Character | Deeds | Destroy | Good | Heaven | Kindness | Love | Mercy | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Deeds |