This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart, while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles their little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest - affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.
Character | Compassion | Contempt | Good | Heart | Little | Mind | Motives |
If we look back upon the usual course of our feelings, we shall find that we are more influenced by the frequent recurrence of objects than by their weight and importance; and that habit has more force in forming our habits than our opinions have. The mind naturally takes its tone and complexion from what it habitually contemplates.
Kindness is the inability to remain at ease in the presence of another person who is ill at ease, the inability to remain comfortable in the presence of another who is uncomfortable, the ability to have peace of mind when one's neighbor is troubled.
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
The mind grows by what it feeds on.
He only is great at heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career. And he is greatest who does the most of all these things and does them best.
I have found it helpful to keep constantly in mind that there are really two entries to be made for every transaction - one in terms of immediate dollars and cents, the other in terms of goodwill.
Edmund (Louis Antoine Huot) de Goncourt (1822-1896) and Jules (Alfred Huot) de Goncourt
Man is a mind betrayed, not served, by his organs.
For most Americans the sexual revolution was not a vast national orgy of swingers. There was never widespread approval of adultery or promiscuity. The revolution - evolution is a better word - appeared rather as a massive questioning of the double standard and the sexual constraints we grew up with.
Adultery | Better | Character | Evolution | Promiscuity | Revolution | Approval |
The virtuous mind that ever walks attended by a strong siding champion, conscience.
Character | Conscience | Mind |
A person who is sincerely humble will be constantly happy. A humble person realizes that nothing is owed him, and therefore feels satisfied with what he has. He does not raise his sights to receive what is above him. He constantly has peace of mind and always feels the joy of life.
Character | Happy | Joy | Life | Life | Mind | Nothing | Peace | Receive | Will |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities. No wonder then, that in this prudent country most people are so shy of praising anything.
Joseph Grew, fully Joseph Clark Grew
Moral stimulation is good but moral complacency is the most dangerous habit of mind we can develop, and that danger is serious and ever-present.
Character | Complacency | Danger | Good | Habit | Mind | Present | Danger |