This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Do not envy the violet the dew-drop or glitter of a sunbeam; do not envy the bee the plant from which he draws some sweets. Do not envy man the little goods he possesses; for the earth is for him the plant from which he obtains some sweets, and his mind is the dew-drop which the world colors for an instant.
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Commonly called Alfred Lord Tennyson
‘Tis held that sorrow makes us wise.
Faith, love and sorrow are three elements that mysteriously blend in human experience, each having its own tale to tell of the relation which we bear to the Supreme Being.
Experience | Faith | Love | Sorrow | Wisdom |
Not to sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine.
To brood over our sorrow is to embitter our grief.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of envy is not envy itself, but the denial of it.
Envy |
Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim
In the past, traditional art was based on making manifest what is enduring in man, like love, jealously, hatred, envy and greed… Today art has to look again at these unchanging qualities, because society is no longer unchanging. It is up to art today to show us what has become of these unchanging qualities in the world which is moving and changing.
Art | Envy | Greed | Love | Man | Past | Qualities | Society | World | Society | Art |
Obafemi Awolowo, fully Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, commonly known as Awo
After rain comes sunshine; after darkness comes the glorious dawn. There is no sorrow without its alloy of joy, there is no joy without its admixture of sorrow. Behind the ugly terrible mask of misfortune lies the beautiful soothing countenance of prosperity. So, tear the mask!
Darkness | Dawn | Joy | Misfortune | Prosperity | Sorrow | Ugly | Misfortune |
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as “moral indignation,” which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. The “indignant” person has for once the satisfaction of despising and treating a creature as “inferior,” coupled with the feeling of his own superiority and rightness.
Envy | Hate | Indignation | Superiority | Virtue | Virtue |
Where sorrow is concerned, not repression but expression is the wholesome discipline.
Discipline | Sorrow |
Jules de Goncourt, fully Jules Huot de Goncourt
The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite! There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.