This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
Restfulness is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert.
A passion comes to an end; it is carried off in a coffin, or, weeping in a post-chaise; it drops out of life one way or another, and the earth-clods close over it, and we see it no more. But it has been part of our souls, and it is eternal.
If you feel envious of others, you will never enjoy life. You will always find someone else to envy regardless of what you yourself have. There will invariably be another person who is greater than you in either wisdom, wealth, or power. Unless you stop comparing yourself with others, your entire life will be full of needless pain and suffering.
Character | Envy | Life | Life | Pain | Power | Suffering | Wealth | Will | Wisdom |
John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury
Charity should be the habit of our estimates; kindness of our feelings; benevolence of our affections; cheerfulness of our social intercourse; generosity of our living; improvement of our progress; prayer of our desires; fidelity of our sex-examination; being and doing good of our entire life.
Benevolence | Character | Charity | Cheerfulness | Feelings | Fidelity | Generosity | Good | Habit | Improvement | Kindness | Life | Life | Prayer | Progress |
Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that, whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn.
Character | Circumstances | Existence | Life | Life | Will | Youth | Youth | Afraid |
One of the indisputable lessons of life is that we cannot get or keep anything for ourselves alone unless we also get it for others too.
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
Whatever may happen in the future, I know that I have learned three things which will remain forever convictions of my heart as well as my mind. Life, even the hardest life, is the most beautiful, wonderful and miraculous treasure in the world. Fulfillment of duty is another beautiful thing, making life happy and giving to the soul an unconquerable force to sustain ideals. This is my second conviction, and my third is that cruelty, hatred, and injustice never can and never will be able to create a mental, moral or material millennium.
Character | Convictions | Cruelty | Duty | Force | Fulfillment | Future | Giving | Happy | Heart | Ideals | Injustice | Injustice | Life | Life | Mind | Soul | Will | World |
Never teach false modesty. How exquisitely absurd to teach a girl that beauty is of no value, dress of no use! Beauty is of value; her whole prospects and happiness in life may often depend upon a new gown or a becoming bonnet: if she has five grains of common sense she will find this out. The great thing is to teach her their proper value.
Absurd | Beauty | Character | Common Sense | Life | Life | Modesty | Sense | Teach | Will | Beauty | Happiness |
The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes, a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips though they cannot speak.
When we act upon the formula of "giving service" we seem to get what we want and we also get it for the other person, too. In the high art of serving others, workers sustain their morale, management keeps its customers, and the nation prospers. One of the indisputable lessons of life is that we cannot get or keep anything for ourselves alone unless we also get it for others, too.