This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, also known as Ben Ezra or Abenezra
The vast majority of people are slavers to their desires. The true king who deserves a royal crown is only a person who is free from the pressures of his desires.
It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the same, in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions: the same events follow the same causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit: these passions, mixed in various degrees, and distributed through society, have been from the beginning of the world, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprises, which have ever been observed among mankind.
Ambition | Avarice | Beginning | Character | Events | Generosity | Human nature | Love | Mankind | Men | Motives | Nations | Nature | Principles | Public | Self | Self-love | Society | Spirit | Uniformity | World |
Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor
Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.
Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva
Justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God Himself; and the development of law is only then a progress when it is directed towards those principles which always like Him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice of error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice.
Character | Doctrine | Error | Eternal | God | Justice | Law | Prejudice | Principles | Progress | God |
Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
The majority of man are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, terribly objective sometimes, but the real task is in fact to be objective towards oneself and subjective towards all others.
We are not asking our children to do their own best but to be the best. Education is in danger of becoming a religion based on fear; its doctrine is to compete. The majority of our children are being led to believe that they are doomed to failure in a world which has room only for those at the top.
Character | Children | Danger | Doctrine | Education | Failure | Fear | Majority | Religion | World | Danger | Failure |
Moral principles require reasoning and discourse, to discover the certainty of their truths; they lie not open as natural characters engraven on the mind.
Character | Mind | Principles |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
Great revolutions are the work rather of principles than of bayonets, and are achieved first in the moral, and afterwards in the material sphere.
Character | Principles | Wisdom | Work |
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Business | Character | Conduct | Conscience | Death | Heart | Little | Principles | Will | Business |
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Business | Character | Conscience | Distress | Heart | Little | Love | Man | Principles | Reflection | Smile | Strength | Will | Business |
The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living light on every page of our history, are these: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom; freedom, none but virtue; virtue, none but knowledge; and neither freedom nor virtue has any vigor or immortal hope except the principles of the Christian faith...
Character | Faith | Freedom | History | Hope | Knowledge | Light | Principles | Religion | Security | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |
The thing that must survive you is not just the record of your practice, but the principles that are the basis of your practice.
Character | Practice | Principles |
Our principles are the springs of our actions; our actions, the springs of our happiness or misery. Too much care, therefore, cannot be taken in forming our principles.
Care | Character | Principles | Happiness |