This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
Many good people admire what is bad, but no one condemns what is good.
One cannot properly appreciate the human realities so long as one labors under the adolescent delusion that people get the fates they deserve.
It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species.
Character | Compassion | Individual | Love | Self |
Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins
Love means giving one’s self to another person fully, not just physically. When two people really love each other, this helps them to stay alive and grow. One must be loved to grow. Love’s such a precious and fragile thing that when it comes we have to hold on tightly. And when it comes, we’re very lucky because for some it never comes at all. If you have love, you’re wealthy in a way that can never be measured.
Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar
Any simple act is very, very great if you do it with love and oneness... The greatest art of life is to feel happy by making someone else happy and thereby realize the mystical thread of life. Be fearless, be disciplined, be meditative, and be self-less. That will make you happy and playful.
Art | Character | Happy | Life | Life | Love | Mystical | Oneness | Self | Will | Art |
Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar
All weaknesses are just fabrications of mind. If I am not happy with myself, how can you make me happy? It takes time to see that my unhappiness stems from myself and not from you. We love to blame others as the source of our unhappiness because that is how we feel good about ourselves. But when we go deeper, we realize that no one in the whole world can make us happy or unhappy. It depends on our own integrity.
Blame | Character | Good | Happy | Integrity | Love | Mind | Time | Unhappiness | World |
What we call love is in its essence Reverence for Life. All material and spiritual values are values only insofar as they serve the maintenance of life at its highest level and furtherance of life. Ethics are boundless in their domain and limitless in their demands. They are concerned with all living things that come into our sphere.
Madame de Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné
Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it.
Character | Confidence | Distrust | Enemy | Enough | Good | Man | Nothing | Opinion |
Whatever you have received more than others - in health, in talents, in ability, in success, in a pleasant childhood, in harmonious conditions of home life - all this you must not take to yourself as a matter of course. In gratitude for your good fortune, you must render in return some sacrifice of your own life for another life.
Ability | Character | Childhood | Fortune | Good | Gratitude | Health | Life | Life | Sacrifice | Success |