This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Elizabeth Anscombe, fully Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret "G. E. M." Anscombe
You cannot take any performance (even an interior performance) as itself an act of intention; for if you describe a performance, the fact that it has taken place is not a proof of intention; words for example may occur in somebody’s mind without his meaning them. so intention is never a performance in the mind, though in some matters a performance in the mind which is seriously meant may make a difference to the correct account of the man’s action - e.g., in embracing someone. But the matters in question are necessarily ones in which outward acts are ‘significant’ in some way.
Action | Example | Intention | Man | Meaning | Mind | Question | Wisdom | Words |
When performing a good deed and other people are present, imagine you are standing in a forest surrounded only by trees and flowers. In the long run there is no difference between the two situations. Just as the trees have no awareness of what you are doing, so too in the long run it does not make a difference what those people thought about you for the few seconds they saw you.
Awareness | Character | Good | People | Present | Thought | Awareness | Thought |
The physical loss is not sufficient for mourning. Purely on a physical level what would a person gain if he lived many more years? What is the ultimate gain in devouring hundreds more chickens and thousands more loaves of bread? What is the overall difference if the deceased left all this to others? The Torah obligates us to mourn to emphasize the loss of the true value of life; which is the spiritual elevation a person could have gained if he were still alive. The Almighty placed him on this earth for this purpose. The person’s death should remind the mourners to fill their lives with the spiritual growth that they are capable of.
Character | Death | Earth | Growth | Life | Life | Mourn | Mourning | Purpose | Purpose | Loss | Torah | Value |
As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with the inquiry, "What is truth?"
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.
Common Sense | Genius | Nature | Sense | Wisdom |
Whatever difference there may appear to be in man's fortunes, there is still a certain compensation of good and ill in all, that makes them equal.
Compensation | Good | Man | Wisdom |
Thomas Buxton, fully Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet
The longer I live, the more I am certain that the difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, between the great and the insignificant, is energy - invincible determination - a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.
Death | Determination | Energy | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom |
G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell.
Wisdom |
You have removed most of the road blocks to success when you have learned the difference between motion and direction.
G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.