This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
John M. Wilson, fully John Moulder Wilson
Let's learn and label properly Disappointment and Discouragement for what they are - two completely different states of mind. Disappointment can be a spur to improvement that will contribute to success. But Discouragement is a mortal enemy that destroys courage and robs one of the will to fight. It is not circumstance that causes Discouragement, but one's own reaction to that circumstance. Everyone must meet Disappointment, many times; it is simply a part of life. When it is met, we may resign ourselves to Discouragement and failure. Or we may recognize each Disappointment as an asset by which we can profit, and take new strength from a lesson learned. The choice is ours, each time, to make.
Character | Choice | Courage | Enemy | Failure | Improvement | Lesson | Life | Life | Mind | Mortal | Strength | Success | Time | Will | Wisdom | Circumstance | Learn |
He that has a "spirit of detail" will do better in life than many who figured beyond him in the university. Such an one is minute and particular. He adjusts trifles; and these trifles compose most of the business and happiness of life. Great events happen seldom, and affect few; trifles happen every moment to everybody; and though one occurrence of them adds little to the happiness or misery of life, yet the sum total of their continual repetition is of the highest consequence.
Better | Business | Character | Events | Life | Life | Little | Spirit | Trifles | Will | Business | Happiness |
It is only in the stillness and simplicity of presence - when we are aware of what we are experiencing, when we are here with it as it unfolds - that we can really appreciate our life and reconnect with the ordinary magic of being alive on this earth... Our life is unsatisfactory only because we are not living it fully, because instead we are pursuing a happiness that is always somewhere else, other than where we are right now.
Character | Earth | Life | Life | Magic | Right | Simplicity | Happiness |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
If there is free will, all things do not happen according to fate; if all things do not happen according to fate, there is not a certain order of causes; and if there is not a certain order of causes, neither is there a certain order of things foreknown by God - for things cannot come to pass except they are preceded by efficient causes - but if there is no fixed and certain order of causes foreknown by God, all things cannot be said to happen according as He foreknew that they would happen... But it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain to God and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes of human actions; and He Who foreknew all the causes of things would certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills.
Fate | Free will | God | Nothing | Order | Will | Wills | Wisdom | God |
Simcha Zissel of Kelm, fully Rabbi imcha Zissel Ziv Broida, aka the Elder of Kelm
When a person focuses on the goals of his life, he is able to overcome the difficulties involved. When one’s focus is on olam haboh [world-to-come], he lives in a state of happiness even though he experiences many inconveniences along his relatively short trip.
Character | Focus | Goals | Life | Life | World | Happiness |
One of the greatest secrets of success and happiness is always to have something left over.
Alexandre Vinet, fully Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet
Religion finds the love of happiness and the principles of duty separated in us; and its mission - its masterpiece is, to reunite them.
Character | Duty | Love | Mission | Principles | Religion | Happiness |
We are always looking for pleasure, frantically seeking happiness in many ways, and totally missing the simplest, most fundamental pleasure, which actually is also the greatest pleasure: just being here. When we are really present, the presence itself is made out of fullness, contentment and blissful pleasure... Happiness, value, and pleasure are not he result of anything. These qualities are part of our fundamental nature.
Contentment | Nature | Pleasure | Present | Qualities | Wisdom | Happiness |