This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The doctrine that Universal Happiness is the ultimate standard must not be understood to imply that Universal Benevolence is the only right or always best motive of action... it is not necessary that the end which gives the criterion of rightness should always be the end at which we consciously aim; and if experience shows that the general happiness will be more satisfactorily attained if men frequently act from other motives than pure universal philanthropy, it is obvious that these other motives are reasonably to be preferred on Utilitarian principles.
Action | Benevolence | Doctrine | Experience | Men | Motives | Philanthropy | Principles | Right | Will | Happiness |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
Every fresh act of benevolence is the herald of deeper satisfaction; every charitable act a stepping-stone towards heaven.
Benevolence | Heaven |
True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part of religious training.
Beauty | Benevolence | Duty | Good | Kindness | Man | Spirit | Training | Will | Beauty | Politeness | Happiness |
In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse of obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.
Men can never acquire respect by benevolence alone, though they may gain love, so that the greatest beneficence only procures them honor when it is regulated by worthiness.
James Froude, fully James Anthony Froude
Human improvement is from within outward.
We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues; twice blest, sometimes.
Benevolence | Courtesy | Good | Kindness | Little | Will | Happiness |
Reason is progressive; instinct, stationary. Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor the house of the beaver.
Improvement | Instinct | Reason |
There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every conquest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her; and zealously to labor after her ways is to receive them.
Conquest | Difficulty | Labor | Life | Life | Power | Receive | Virtue | Virtue |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
People are the common denominator of progress. So… no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills and the other familiar furniture of economic development. . . . But we are coming to realize . . . that there is certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.
Conquest | Improvement | People | Power | Progress | Wrong |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what make its pursuit so interesting
Half the misery of human life might be extinguished if men would alleviate the general curse they live under by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence and humanity.
Benevolence | Compassion | Humanity | Life | Life | Men |
Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men.
Action | Benevolence | Faith | God | Improvement | Men | Obedience | Purity | Religion | Self | Temper | God |
Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect; and thus while a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their restraint.
Fairness | Freedom | Individual | Obedience | Perfection | Restraint |
What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men’s evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice.
Benevolence | Charity | Cowardice | Evil | Faith | Men | Practice | Reality | Forgive |
Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others; on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means but as itself an ideal end. Aiming this at something else, they find happiness by the way... Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life.
Art | Chance | Happy | Improvement | Life | Life | Mankind | Means | Object | Purpose | Purpose | Art | Happiness |