This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Jean Charles Sismondi, fully Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
Suffering is the surest means of making us truthful to ourselves.
Consideration is not merely a matter of emotional goodwill but of intellectual vigor and moral self-sacrifice. Wisdom must combine with sympathy. That is why consideration underlies the phrase "a scholar and a gentleman," which really sums up the ideal of the output of a college education.
Character | Consideration | Education | Sacrifice | Scholar | Self | Self-sacrifice | Sympathy | Wisdom |
Didst thou every descry a glorious eternity in a winged moment of time? Didst thou ever see a bright infinite in the narrow point of an object? Then thou knowest what spirit means - the spire-top, whither all things ascend harmoniously, where they meet and sit contented in an unfathomed Depth of Life.
Character | Eternity | Life | Life | Means | Object | Spirit | Time |
Janet Erskine Stuart, known as Mother Janet Stuart
We must never try to escape the obligation of living at our best.
Character | Obligation |
John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury
Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.
Character | Falsehood | Jealousy | Man | Means | Suspicion | Thought | Truth | Thought |
Grief is a wound that needs attention in order to heal. To work through and complete grief means to face our feelings openly and honestly, to express and release our feelings fully and to tolerate and accept our feeling for however long it takes for the wound to heal. We fear that once acknowledged grief will bowl us over. The truth is that grief experienced does dissolve. Grief unexpressed is grief that lasts indefinitely.
Attention | Character | Fear | Feelings | Grief | Means | Order | Truth | Will | Work |
Ludwig Tieck, fully Johann Ludwig Tieck
He who considers himself a paragon of wisdom is sure to commit some superlatively stupid act.
Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow creatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him!
Beauty | Character | Excellence | Hate | Life | Life | Man | Pain | Passion | Pleasure | Valor | Valor | Wisdom | Youth |