This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Men habitually use only a small part of the power they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstances.
Character | Circumstances | Men | Power |
So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
Character | Courage | Enough | Experiment | Faith | Generosity | Man | Mistake | Service |
Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, also known as Ben Ezra or Abenezra
The vast majority of people are slavers to their desires. The true king who deserves a royal crown is only a person who is free from the pressures of his desires.
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
Many people are willing to rearrange the outer things in their lives, but few are willing to rearrange the priorities of their inner worlds. If your consciousness doesn’t change, you will continually re-create the same old circumstances.
Change | Character | Circumstances | Consciousness | People | Will | Old |
The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is noninterference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.
The only thing of value in a man is the soul. That is why it is the soul that is given everlasting life, either in the Land of the Sky or in the Underworld. The soul is man’s greatest power; it is the soul that makes us human, but how it does so we do not know. Our flesh and blood, our body, is nothing but an envelope about our vital power.
Body | Character | Land | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Power | Soul | Value |
A large amount of physical pain and suffering is caused by one’s thoughts and behaviors. The desire for food causes people to overeat and consume food that is harmful to their health. Envy, anger, and honor-seeking lead to diseases of the heart, high blood pressure, nervous tension and excessive stress. Moreover, even when you pain is basically caused by physical symptoms, your mental attitude towards the pain can greatly increase or decrease the actual amount of suffering you experience. The pain you suffer from illnesses and injuries is frequently more psychological than physical. A person who learns to master a calm and serene attitude towards life trains himself to tolerate physical pain and the actual suffering is greatly lessened.
Anger | Character | Desire | Envy | Experience | Health | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Pain | People | Suffering |
Paul W. Ivey, fully Paul Wesley Ivey
Study the unusually successful people you know, and you will find them imbued with enthusiasm for their work which is contagious. Not only are they themselves excited about what they are doing, but they also get you excited.
Nature... is frugal in her operations and will not be at the expense of a particular instinct to give us that knowledge which experience and habit will soon produce. Reproduced sights and contacts tied together with the present sensation in the unity of a thing with a name, these are complex objective stuff out of which my actually perceived table is made. Infants must go through a long education of the eye and ear before they can perceive the realities which adults perceive. Every perception is an acquired perception.
Character | Education | Experience | Habit | Instinct | Knowledge | Nature | Perception | Present | Unity | Will |
It is our daily duty to consider that in all circumstances of life, pleasurable, painful, or otherwise, the conduct of every human being affects, more or less, the happiness of others, especially of those in the same house; and that, as life is made up, for the most part, not of great occasions, but of small everyday moments, it is the giving to those moments their greatest amount of peace, pleasantness, and security, that contributes most to the sum of human good. Be peaceable. Be cheerful. Be true.
Character | Circumstances | Conduct | Duty | Giving | Good | Life | Life | Peace | Security | Happiness |
There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
Every thought, feeling, word, and action, whether large or small is a cause which sets into motion an eventual corresponding effect. You don’t always sow where you sow, but you always reap what you sow. You can always, at any moment, put a new cause into motion.
Trader Horn, fully Alfred Aloysius "Trader" Horn, born Alfred Aloysius Smith, alias Zambezi Jack
The first thing education teaches you is to walk alone.