This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Oprah Winfrey, born Oprah Gail Winfrey
Don’t complain about what you don’t have. Use what you’ve got. To do less than your best is a sin. Every single one of us has the power for greatness, because greatness is determined by service – to yourself and to others.
Then I must surely be right in saying that we shall not be properly educated ourselves, nor will the guardians whom we are training, until we can recognize the qualities of discipline, courage, generosity, greatness of mind, and others akin to them, as well as their opposites in all their manifestations.
Greatness | Honor | Men | Qualities | Right | Will | Wisdom |
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes m ore conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.
Appearance | Fortune | Good | Greatness | Spirit | Will | World |
The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.
Enough | Greatness | Perception | Virtue | Virtue |
The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.
Enough | Greatness | Justice | Need | Perception | Plenty | Poverty | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Better | Distinction | Duty | Greatness | Man | Meanness | Opinion | People | Rule | Solitude | Will | World | Think |
Wisdom has its root in goodness, and not goodness its root in wisdom.
Wisdom |
Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches and, to make knowledge valuable you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom. Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished. The joy of the spirit indicates its strength. All healthy things are sweet-tempered. Genius works in sport, and goodness smiles to the last.
Cheerfulness | Genius | Joy | Knowledge | Nothing | Spirit | Strength | Will | Wisdom |
As to the freedom of the will, a very different account must be given of it as it exists in God and as its exists for us... That idea of good impelled God to choose one thing rather than another... Thus that supreme indifference in God is the supreme proof of his omnipotence. But as to man, since he finds the nature of all goodness and truth already determined by God, and his will cannot bear upon anything else, it is evident that he embraces the true and the good the more willingly and hence the more freely in proportion as he sees the true and the good more clearly, and that he is never indifferent save when he does not know what is the more true or the better, or at least when he does not see clearly enough to prevent him from doubting about it. Thus the indifference which attaches to human liberty is very different from that which belongs to the divine.
Better | Enough | Freedom | God | Good | Indifference | Liberty | Man | Nature | Omnipotence | Truth | Will | God |
What makes greatness is starting something that lives after you.
Robert Kennedy, fully Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. n.
Belief | Change | Courage | Daring | Energy | Events | Greatness | History | Man | Oppression | Time | Will | Work |
William Jones, fully Sir William Jones of Nayland, aka Trinity Jones
We find in God all the excellences of light, truth, wisdom, greatness, goodness and life. Light gives joy and gladness; truth gives satisfaction; wisdom gives learning and instruction; greatness excites admiration; goodness produces love and gratitude; life gives immortality and insures enjoyment.
Admiration | Enjoyment | God | Gratitude | Greatness | Immortality | Joy | Learning | Life | Life | Light | Love | Truth | Wisdom | God |
Theodor Herzl, born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl
There was nothing original in the conception that the world was round; it was held by all educated astronomers of the time. The greatness of Columbus was rather in the courage that he displayed in venturing into the unknown sea to prove the validity of his thesis and his pertinacity in the pursuit of his project.