This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?
Character | Eternity | Hunger | Need | Possessions | Thought | Time | Trifles | Will | Thought |
The proverbial wisdom of the populace in the street, on the roads, and in the markets instructs the ear of him who studies man more fully than a thousand rules ostentatiously displayed.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who does not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself for it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender.
Character | Love | Man | Reality | Sacrifice | Surrender | Work |
Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach
Peace of mind is essential for obtaining many virtues. Its absence leads to all types of shortcomings. When you have peace of mind, you can use your mind constructively. Lack of peace of mind breeds anger and resentment. The quality of one’s prayers and blessings is dependent on the mastery of one’s thoughts... Only when a person has peace of mind can he really feel love for humanity. Lack of peace of mind leads to animosity towards others. Peace of mind leads to love.
Absence | Anger | Blessings | Character | Humanity | Love | Mind | Peace | Resentment |
I think there cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason: which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd if they were innate; or so much as self-evident, which every innate principle must needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain its truth, nor want any reason to gain its approbation.
Absurd | Character | Man | Need | Reason | Rule | Self | Truth | Think |
Gina Lombroso, fully Gina Elena Zefora Lombroso
Morality is not an imposition removed from life and reason; it is a compendium of the minimum of sacrifices necessary for man to live in company with other men, without suffering too much or causing others to suffer.
Character | Life | Life | Man | Men | Morality | Reason | Suffering |
Perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understanding as do from these receive into our understanding as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other sensation, so I call this reflection, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operation within self... These two, I say, vis. external material things, as the objects of sensation, and the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of reflection, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings.
Character | Enough | Ideas | Knowing | Man | Mind | Nothing | Perception | Receive | Reflection | Self | Sense | Thinking | Understanding |
Frederick Loomis, fully Sir Frederick Oscar Warren Loomis
Be yourself. Cultivate desirable qualities. Be alert. Look for opportunities to express yourself. Be positive. Determine your goal and the route to it. Be systematic. Take one step at a time. Be persistent. Hold to your course. Be a worker. Work your brain more than your body. Be a student. Know your job. Be fair. Treat the other man as you would be treated. Be temperate. Avoid excess in anything. Be confident. Have faith that cannot be weakened.
Body | Character | Excess | Faith | Man | Qualities | Time | Work |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
It is the duty of a man of honor to teach others the good which he has not been able to do himself because of the malignity of the times, that this good finally can be done by another more loved in heaven.
George Mackenzie, fully Sir George Mackenzie. 2nd Baronet, 1st Earl of Cromartie
Luxury makes a man so soft that it is hard to please him, and easy to trouble him; so that his pleasures at last become his burden. Luxury is a nice master, hard to be pleased.
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
The commandment to love the Almighty requires that we should be willing to give up our lives if necessary out of love for Him. If a person has internalized that in reality he is a soul and his body is merely an outer garment that he temporarily wears, he will find it relatively easy to fulfill the commandment of giving up his life is need be. He does not feel as if he is sacrificing himself for he always retains his soul. His body which he is sacrificing is not himself but only an outer garment. For such a person giving up his life is not the ultimate sacrifice since his body is not an integral part of his identity.
Body | Character | Giving | Life | Life | Love | Need | Reality | Sacrifice | Soul | Will |
Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach
Who is a righteous man and who is an evil man? Many people think a righteous man is one who does not transgress, and the evil person is one who constantly transgresses. But even the very righteous also transgress and even the very wicked perform good deeds. The essential difference between the two is that a righteous person tries to overcome his desires to do wrong and the evil person does not.
Character | Deeds | Evil | Good | Man | People | Wrong | Think |
I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
Louis XIV, aka Louis the Great or Sun King NULL
There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.
No sincere desire of doing good need make an enemy of a single human being; that philanthropy has surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the oppressor equally as with the oppressed.