This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart, while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles their little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest - affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.
Character | Compassion | Contempt | Good | Heart | Little | Mind | Motives |
We're worn into grooves by Time - by our habits. In the end, these grooves are going to show whether we've been second rate or champions, each in his way in dispatching the affairs of every day. By choosing our habits, we determine the grooves into which Time will wear us; and these grooves that enrich our lives and make for ease of mind, peace, happiness - achievement.
Achievement | Character | Day | Mind | Peace | Time | Will | Happiness |
Pride is a deeply rooted ailment of the soul. The penalty is misery; the remedy lies in the sincere, life-long cultivation of humility, which means self-evaluation and a proper perspective toward past, present and future.
Character | Cultivation | Future | Humility | Life | Life | Means | Past | Present | Pride | Self | Soul |
Robert A. Heinlein, fully Robert Anson Heinlein, pen name for Anson MacDonald
Learning isn't a means to an end; it is an end in itself.
When you descant on the faults of others, consider whether you be not guilty of the same. To gain knowledge of ourselves, the best way is to convert the imperfections of others into a mirror for discovering our own.
Forgiveness means giving up, letting go. It has nothing to do with condoning behavior. It's just letting the whole thing go. 'I forgive you for not being the way I want you to be. I forgive you and set you free.' (Affirmation sets you free.)
Behavior | Character | Forgiveness | Giving | Means | Nothing | Forgive |
Robert A. Heinlein, fully Robert Anson Heinlein, pen name for Anson MacDonald
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.
Every man, no matter how great or small, must be viewed not as a means to an end, but as an end in himself.
A simple heart will love all that is most precious on earth, husband or wife, parent or child, brother or friend, without marring its singleness; external things will have no attraction save inasmuch as they lead souls to Him; all exaggeration or unreality, affection and falsehood must pass away from such a one, as the dews dry up before the sunshine. The single motive is to please God, and hence arises total indifference as to what others say and think, so that words and actions are perfectly simple and natural, as in his sight.
Character | Earth | Exaggeration | Falsehood | Friend | God | Heart | Husband | Indifference | Love | Wife | Will | Words | Parent |
Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"
Whatever can lead an intelligent being to the exercise or habit of mental enjoyment, contributes more to his happiness than the highest sensual or mere bodily pleasures. The one feeds the soul, while the other, for the most part, only exhausts the frame, and too often injures the immortal part... Let all seen enjoyments lead to the unseen fountain from whence they flow.
Mary Eliza Haweis, aka Mrs. Hugh R. Haweis, maiden name Mary E. Joy
After all, what is vanity? If it means only a certain wish to look one’s best, is it not another name for self-respect? If it means inordinate self-admiration (very rare among persons with some occupation), it is less wicked than absurd.
Absurd | Admiration | Character | Means | Occupation | Respect | Self |
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
James Hadfield, fully Captain James Arthur Hadfield
It is literally true that in judging others we trumpet abroad our secret faults.
You can only make others better by being good yourself.
When a miser contents himself with giving nothing, and saving what he has got, and is in others respects guilty of no injustice, he is, perhaps, of all bad men the least injurious to society; the evil he does is properly nothing more than the omission of the good he might do. If, of all the vices, avarice is the most generally detested, it is the effect of an avidity common to all men; it is because men hate those from whom they can expect nothing. The greedy misers rail at sordid misers.
Avarice | Character | Evil | Giving | Good | Hate | Injustice | Injustice | Men | Nothing | Society | Guilty |
A happy life is made up of little things in which smiles and small favors are given habitually. A gift sent, a letter written, a call made, a recommendation given, transportation provided, a cake made, a book lent, a check sent - things which are done without hesitation. Kindness isn't sacrifice so much as it is being considerate for the feelings of others, sharing happiness, the unselfish thought, the spontaneous and friendly act, forgetfulness of our own present interests.
Character | Feelings | Forgetfulness | Happy | Kindness | Life | Life | Little | Present | Sacrifice | Thought |