This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
The principle of democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when each citizen would fain to be upon a level with those whom he has chosen to command him. Then the people, incapable of bearing the very power they have delegated, want to manage everything themselves, to debate for the senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to decide for the judges.
Democracy | Equality | Extreme | People | Power | Spirit | Wisdom |
Marshall McLuhan, fully Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Ads push the principle of noise all the way to the plateau of persuasion. They are quite in accord with the procedures of brainwashing.
Noise | Persuasion | Wisdom |
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Good | Moderation | Temper | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Moderation |
The virtues, like the muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.
The golden thread in the mind of man is the light that leads towards excellence as a human objective. If perfection is a divine attribute, excellence is a human incentive and a healthy aim, even when we fall short of the target.
Excellence | Light | Man | Mind | Perfection | Wisdom | Excellence |
The greatest curse that can be entailed on mankind is a state of war. All the atrocious crimes committed in years of peace, all that is spent in peace by the secret corruptions, or by the thoughtless extravagance of nations, are mere trifles compared with the gigantic evils which stalk over this world in a state of war. God is forgotten in war; every principle of Christianity is trampled upon.
Extravagance | God | Mankind | Nations | Peace | Trifles | War | Wisdom | World | God |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
As the principle of the division of labor is more extensively applied, the workman becomes more weak, more narrow-minded, and more dependent.
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more for an unhappy but other wise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.
Psychology | Will | Wisdom | Wise | World |
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
When a child begins to move in the midst of the objects that surround him, he is instinctively led to appropriate to himself everything that he can lay his hands upon; he has no notion of the property of others; but as he gradually learns the value of things and begins to perceive that he may in his turn be despoiled, he becomes more circumspect, and he ends by respecting those rights in others which he wishes to have respected in himself. The principle which the child derives from the possession of his toys is taught to the man by the objects which he may call his own.
Ends | Man | Property | Rights | Wisdom | Wishes | Child | Value |
Perry F. Webb, fully Perry Flynt Webb or Perry Flint Webb
The home... is the lens through which we get our first look at marriage and all civic duties; it is the clinic where, by conversation and attitude, impressions are created with respect to sobriety and reverence; it is the school where lessons of truth or falsehood, honesty or deceit are learned; it is the mold which ultimately determines the structure of society.
Conversation | Deceit | Falsehood | Honesty | Marriage | Respect | Reverence | Society | Truth | Wisdom | Respect |
I have meditated on the different religions, endeavoring to understand them, and I have found that they stem from a single principle with numerous ramifications. Do not therefore ask a man to adopt a particular religion (rather than another), for this would separate him from the fundamental principle. It is this principle itself which must come to seek him.
Man | Religion | Understand |
The discovery that one cannot well give back or be given back what one has given or been given in the same place is sometimes as painful as the discovery that one is being loved on principle and not from preference.
Discovery | Preference | Wisdom | Discovery |
Joseph Zabara, fully Joseph ben Meïr Zabara
A healthy man may live seven days without food, five without drink, but only three without sleep.
It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcome a pure sentiment by an involuntary glow of satisfaction. While the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.
Art | Knowledge | Literature | Mind | Nature | Perception | Sentiment | Soul | Thought | Wisdom |