This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vardis Fisher, fully Vardis Alvero Fisher
Do people love truth? On the contrary, mankind has employed its subtlest ingenuity and intelligence in efforts to evade or conceal it... Do human beings love justice? The sordid travesties in our courts year after year suggest that they love justice only for themselves. Do they love peace? Can anyone seriously ask the question? Do they love freedom? Only for those who share their views. Love of peace, freedom, justice, truth - this is a myth that has been created by the folk mind, and if the artist does not look behind the myth to the reality, he will indeed wander amid the phantoms which he creates.
Character | Freedom | Ingenuity | Intelligence | Justice | Love | Mankind | Mind | Myth | Peace | People | Question | Reality | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Ingenuity |
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute. What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Begin it and the work will be completed.
Maybe the purpose of life is not as important as the process of growth that’s integral with being alive... In answering the question “What’s the meaning of life?” maybe the people who have taken the challenges of life as meaningful are the best ones to ask... These are the people who have appreciated and taken advantage of the possibilities life has to offer. They find life precious.
Character | Growth | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Purpose | Purpose | Question |
Suffering has the ability to weaken one’s desires. It can separate a person from cleaving to material matters. When one is in the midst of suffering, he can see it is possible for him to live without gratifying his desires, and without honor and approval. Little by little, he becomes free from those things he was previously bound to. His suffering can help him open his eyes to see his true self and internal wealth.
Ability | Character | Honor | Little | Self | Suffering | Wealth |
A person not aware of his faults and failings will not work on self-improvement. But if he overexaggerates the extent of his negative qualities and behavior, he will become discouraged and his discouragement will prevent him from improving.
Behavior | Character | Improvement | Qualities | Self | Self-improvement | Will | Work |
Ralph A. Habas, fully Ralph Alfred Habas
The world is what people make it.
J. T. Headley, fully Joel T. Headley
To refine and polish is a part of our work in this world.
A person who does not mix with other people will not know how to help others. Such a person lacks knowledge about the way people think, their wants and their desires. Even if he wants to help others, he will not know what is good for them. When he wants to comply with the wishes of others, he will confuse them with his own wishes. Because he lacks knowledge about other people, he will not be able to say what is appropriate and acceptable even if he tries. His obstacle is not a lack of love for his fellow man, but a lack of understanding of others.
Character | Good | Knowledge | Love | Man | People | Understanding | Wants | Will | Wishes | Obstacle |
Strong people are made by opposition like kites that go up against the wind.
Character | Opposition | People |
There are two kinds of artist in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them, and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to other the beauty that has awakened their own admiration.
Admiration | Beauty | Character | Desire | Spirit | Work | World | Beauty |
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
Every man’s power have relation to some kind of work; and whenever he finds that kind of work which we can do best - that to which his powers are best adapted - he finds that which will give him the best development, and that by which he can best build up, or make, his manhood.
What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.
Character | Impatience | Men | People | Time | Unhappiness |
Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.
Character | Government | Honor | People |
Sarah Grand, pseudonymn of Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke McFall
Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than in what they make us see in ourselves.