This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
To make a man happy, fill his hands with work, his heart with affection, his mind with purpose, his memory with useful knowledge, his future with hope, and his stomach with food. The devil never enters a man except one of these rooms be vacant.
Character | Devil | Future | Happy | Heart | Hope | Knowledge | Man | Memory | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Work |
Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa
The Indians were religious from the first moments of life. From the moment of the mother’s recognition that she had conceived to the end of the child’s second year of life, which was the ordinary duration of lactation, it was supposed by us that the mother’s spiritual influence was supremely important. Her attitude and secret meditations must be such to instill into the receptive soul of the unborn child the love of the Great Mystery and a sense of connectedness with all creation. Silence and isolation are the rule of life for the expectant mother... Silence, love, reverence - this is the trinity of first lessons, and to these she later adds generosity, courage and chastity.
Character | Chastity | Courage | Generosity | Important | Influence | Isolation | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Mystery | Reverence | Rule | Sense | Silence | Soul | Child |
The whole history of science, art and morals proves that the mind that appears in individuals, is not as such individual mind. The former is in itself a system of belief, recognitions, and ignorances, of acceptances and rejections, of expectancies and appraisals of meanings which have been instituted under the influence of custom and tradition.
Art | Belief | Character | Custom | History | Individual | Influence | Mind | Science | System | Tradition | Art |
Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond
A man knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them he rather finds a relaxation of mind than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.
What I am thinking and doing day by day is resistlessly shaping my future - a future in which there is no expiation except through my own better conduct. No one can save me. No one can live my life for me. If I am wise I shall begin today to build my own truer and better world from within.
Better | Character | Conduct | Day | Future | Life | Life | Thinking | Wise | World |
Life in this world is a very important reality, but it is not the ultimate reality... True growth in this world always calls for a dying to my own sinfulness, individualism and selfishness so that I might come closer to my true self in relationship to all others and to God. Thus, in the end, life and death are not diametrically opposed. Life involves a dying and dying is a way of life.
Character | Death | God | Growth | Important | Life | Life | Reality | Relationship | Self | Selfishness | World |
The tree of life is always in bloom somewhere if we only know where to look.
If a person demands to have everything he wishes, the lack of even a small pleasure can make him feel extremely unhappy. Excessive demands can even lead some people to consider their entire lives as worthless if they are missing some minor pleasure that they arbitrarily demand.
Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen
The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.
Character | Compassion | Heart | Mind | Persuasion |
The influences of little things are as real, and as constantly about us, as the air we breathe or the light by which we see. These are the small - the often invisible - the almost unthought of strands, which are inweaving and twisting by millions, to bind us to character - to good or evil here, and to heaven or hell hereafter.