This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
A proud heart and a lofty mountain are never fruitful.
Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond
A man that knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them he rather finds a relaxation of mind than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.
Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.
Change | Circumstances | Heart | Joy | Wisdom |
He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatest of the soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported without the latter.
Zelda Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre
Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
Ability | Example | Ideas | Intelligence | Mind | Time | Wisdom |
Paul Flory, fully Paul John Flory
Significant inventions are not mere accidents... Happenstance usually plays a part, to be sure, but there is much more to invention than the popular notion of a bolt out of the blue. Knowledge in depth and in breadth are virtual prerequisites. Unless the mind is thoroughly changed beforehand, the proverbial spark of genius, if it should manifest itself, probably will find nothing to ignite.
Genius | Invention | Knowledge | Mind | Nothing | Will | Wisdom |
Education is the process by which the individual relates himself to the universe, gives himself citizenship in the changing world, shares the race's mind and enfranchises his own soul.
Citizenship | Education | Individual | Mind | Race | Soul | Universe | Wisdom | World |
F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
Ability | Example | Ideas | Intelligence | Mind | Time | Wisdom |
Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
One thing above all gives charm to men's thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.
A. H. R. Fairchild, fully Arthur Henry Rolph Fairchild
The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.
Ability | Calmness | Culture | Day | Flexibility | Judgment | Life | Life | Mind | Openness | Problems | Question | Self | Sympathy | Wisdom | Flexibility |
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, also called Bernard de Bouyer
A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.
François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
If we had strength and faith enough to trust ourselves entirely to God, and follow Him simply wherever He should lead us, we should have no need of any great effort of mind to reach perfection.
Effort | Enough | Faith | God | Mind | Need | Perfection | Strength | Trust | Wisdom |