This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There are two things that declare, as with a voice from heaven, that he that fills that eternal throne must be on side of virtue, and that which he befriends must finally prosper and prevail. The first is that the bad are never completely happy and at ease, although possessed of everything that this world can bestow; and that the good are never completely miserable, although deprived of everything that this world can take away. The second is that we are so framed and constituted that the most vicious cannot but pay a secret though unwilling homage to virtue, inasmuch as the worst men cannot bring themselves thoroughly to esteem a bad man, although he may be their dearest friend, nor can they thoroughly despise a good man, although he may be their bitterest enemy.
Despise | Enemy | Esteem | Eternal | Friend | Good | Happy | Heaven | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue | World |
Expect not praise without envy until you are dead. Honors bestowed on the illustrious dead have in them no admixture of envy; for the living pity the dead; and pity and envy, like oil and vinegar, assimilate not.
There are three kinds of praise - that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.
Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
You can be cured in 14 days patients afflicted with melancholia if you follow this prescription. Try to think every day how you can please someone. It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring. All that we demand of a human being and the highest praise we can give him, is that he should be a good fellow worker, a friend to all other men, and a true partner in love and marriage.
Day | Friend | Good | Individual | Life | Life | Love | Man | Marriage | Men | Praise | Think |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
It is common to esteem most what is most unknown.
Esteem |
We refuse praise from a desire to be praised twice.
We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.
Discernment | Display | Equity | Flattery | Merit | Motives | Praise | Recompense |
Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure which is useful to them to praise which deceives them.
Generally we praise only to be praised... Refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
Associate with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.
Better | Esteem | Good | Men | Reputation |
Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your reputation. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust. Undertake not what you cannot perform, be be careful to keep your promise. There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth, and pursue it steadily. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy nation.
Esteem | Evil | Frugality | Good | Happy | Harmony | Honesty | Industry | Men | News | Nothing | Promise | Reputation | Truth |
The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a 'but.'
The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a "but."