This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
How often do we sigh for opportunities of doing good, whist we neglect the openings of Providence in little things, which would frequently lead to the accomplishment of most important usefulness!... Good is done by degrees. However small in proportion the benefits which follow individual attempts to do good, a great deal may thus be accomplished by perseverance, even in the midst of discouragements and disappointments.
Accomplishment | Character | Good | Important | Individual | Little | Neglect | Perseverance | Providence | Usefulness |
Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz
When a person has a large amount of any pleasure, he becomes accustomed to it and no longer feels enjoyment. If, however, a person is only able to obtain a small amount, he greatly appreciates it.
Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.
Character | Day | Earth | Fate | Knowing | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mind | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Smile | Sympathy | Work | Fate | Happiness |
Don't think too much about yourselves. Try to cultivate the habit of thinking of others; this will reward you. Nourish your minds by good reading, constant reading. Discover what your lifework is, work in which you can do most good, in which you can be happiest. Be unafraid in all things when you know you are in the right.
Character | Good | Habit | Reading | Reward | Right | Thinking | Will | Work | Think |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life - the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it - can understand the grief of one who falls from the serene activity into the absorbing soul wasting struggle.
Character | Grief | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Soul | Struggle | Thought | Thought | Understand |
When your property or possessions sustain some damage or loss, work on yourself to accept the Almighty’s judgment with love. Realize you were born without any belongings and you will eventually leave the world without belongings. You need not identify with your possessions since they are not an integral part of you.
Character | Judgment | Love | Need | Possessions | Property | Will | Work | World |
John Denham, fully Sir John Denham
All human wisdom, to divine, is folly.
Henri Deterding, fully Henri Wilhelm August Deterding
The future belongs to those who are virile, to whom it is a pleasure to live, to create, to whet their intelligence on that of the others.
Character | Future | Intelligence | Pleasure |
Abba Eban, born Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban
The vital force in business life is the honest desire to serve. Business, it is said, is the science of service. He profits most who serves best. At the very bottom of the wish to render service must be honesty of purpose, and, as I go along through life, I see more and more that honesty in word, thought, and work means success. It spells a life worth living and in business clean success.
Business | Character | Desire | Force | Honesty | Life | Life | Means | Purpose | Purpose | Science | Service | Success | Thought | Work | Worth | Business |
There is nothing so elastic as the human mind. Like imprisoned steam, the more it is pressed the more it rises to resist the pressure. The more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish.
Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and conduct.
Change | Character | Conduct | Heart | Repentance | Wisdom | Work |
Real human progress depends not so much on inventive ingenuity as on conscience.
Character | Conscience | Ingenuity | Progress | Ingenuity |