This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The primary cause of success in life is the ability to set and achieve goals. That’s why the people who do not have goals are doomed forever to work for those who do. You either work to achieve your own goals or you work to achieve someone else’s.
Ability | Cause | Goals | Life | Life | People | Success | Work |
Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide; anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either receives.
A dog is not considered good because of his barking, and a man is not considered clever because of his ability to talk.
Real wealth is determined by the level of your ability to live our your dreams.
Virtue in a rich person is the ability to give, in a poor man it is the refusal to beg, in a man of high position it is a humble attitude towards fellowmen, and in a man of low position it is the ability to see through life.
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
The noble person calls attention to the good point in others; he does not call attention to their defects. The small person does just the reverse of this.
Time goes by; reputation increases, ability declines.
Ability | Reputation | Time |
Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.
Ability | Fear | Life | Life | Perfection | Right | Success | Will | Wrong | Learn |
Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman
Self-trust comes through direct experience, which remind us to pay attention first to our own experience, not to advice from a book or teacher.
Advice | Attention | Experience | Self | Trust |
Time goes by: reputation increases, ability decline.
Ability | Reputation | Time |
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
Let us not get so busy or live so fast that we can't listen to the music of the meadow or the symphony that glorifies the forest. Some things in the world are far more important than wealth; one of them is the ability to enjoy simple things.
The author of genius does keep till his last breath the spontaneity, the ready sensitiveness, of a child, the "innocence of eye" that means so much to the painter, the ability to respond freshly and quickly to new scenes, and to old scenes as though they were new; to see traits and characteristics as though each were new-minted from the hand of God instead of sorting them quickly into dusty categories and pigeon-holing them without wonder or surprise; to feel situations so immediately and keenly that the word "trite" has hardly any meaning for him; and always to see "the correspondences between things" of which Aristotle spoke two thousand years ago.
Ability | Genius | God | Innocence | Meaning | Means | Wonder | God | Old |
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Ability |
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
You must not retain for one instant any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do the job… This matter frequently calls for more courage than any other thing you will have to do, but I expect you to be perfectly cold-blooded about it.
The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
Ability | Action | Ideas | Men | Motives | Passion | People | Society | Thought | Society | Govern | Thought |
It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.
Ability |