This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Too many follow example rather than precept; but it is safer to learn rather from precept than example. Man a wise teacher does not follow his own teaching; for it is easier to say, do this, than to do it. If then I see good doctrine with an evil life, though I pity the last, I will follow the first. Good sayings belong to all; evil actions only to their authors.
Character | Doctrine | Evil | Example | Good | Life | Life | Man | Pity | Precept | Will | Wise | Learn | Teacher |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.
The most effective teacher will always be biased, for the chief force in teaching is confidence and enthusiasm.
Confidence | Enthusiasm | Force | Will | Wisdom | Teacher |
The philosopher contemplates ideas; the teacher energizes ideas; the student generates ideas.
There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough - the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not.
Ability | Enough | Equality | Reason | Wisdom | Child | Teacher |
The special theory of relativity... creates a formal dependence between the way in which the spatial co-ordinates on the one hand, and the temporal co-ordinates, on the other, have to enter into the natural laws.
Dependence | Wisdom |
Go to the place where the thing you wish to know is native; your best teacher is there. Where the thing you wish to know is so dominant that you must breathe its very atmosphere, there teaching is most thorough, and learning is most easy. You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.
If a child who wanted to be a teacher I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives not less because they may live to see some faction of the battle won.
Battle | Eternal | Greed | Ignorance | Prejudice | War | Wisdom | Child | Teacher |
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
Consequences | Dependence | Knowledge | Science | Wisdom |
Knowledge in relationship creates division... knowledge becomes a barrier in relationship... Where there is division there must be conflict. And therefore an action born out of conflict is a non-intelligent action. So intelligent action is an action that is without friction, without conflict... Dependence is an action of a mind that is not intelligent.
Action | Dependence | Knowledge | Mind | Relationship | Wisdom |
Vern Law, fully Vernon Sanders Law
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson after.
Experience | Lesson | Wisdom | Teacher |
Livy, formally Titus Livius, aka Titus Livy NULL
Experience is the teacher of fools.
Experience | Wisdom | Teacher |