This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is proper I should desire you particularly to distinguish between the love of our country and that spirit of rivalship and ambition which has been common among nations. What has the love of their country hitherto been among mankind? What has it been but a love of domination; a desire of conquest, and a thirst for grandeur and glory, by extending territory, and enslaving surrounding countries? What has it been but a blind and narrow principle, producing in every country a contempt of other countries, and forming men into combinations and factions against their common rights and liberties? This is the principle that has been too often cried up as a virtue of the first rank: a principle of the same kind with that which governs clans of Indians, or tribes of Arabs, and leads them out to plunder and massacre. As most of the evils which have taken place in private life, and among individuals, have been occasioned by the desire of private interest overcoming the public affections; so most of the evils which have taken place among bodies of men have been occasioned by the desire of their own interest overcoming the principle of universal benevolence: and leading them to attack one another’s territories, to encroach on one another’s rights, and to endeavor to build their own advancement on the degradation of all within the reach of their power? What was the love of their country among the Jews, but a wretched partiality to themselves, and a proud contempt of all other nations? What was the love of their country among the old Romans? We have heard much of it; but I cannot hesitate in saying that, however great it appeared in some of its exertions, it was, in general, no better than a principle holding together a band of robbers in their attempts to crush all liberty but their own. What is now the love of his country in a Spaniard, a Turk, or a Russian? Can it be considered as anything better than a passion for slavery, or a blind attachment to a spot where he enjoys no rights, and is disposed of as if he was a beast?
Ambition | Better | Contempt | Desire | Distinguish | Liberty | Love | Men | Partiality | Passion | Public | Rights | Spirit | Virtue | Virtue | Ambition | Old |
One of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.
The virtue of using evidence is precisely that we can come to an agreement about it. But if you listen to two people who are arguing about something, and they each of them have passionate faith that they're right, but they believe different things - they belong to different religions, different faiths, there is nothing they can do to settle their disagreement short of shooting each other, which is what they very often actually do.
Disagreement | Evidence | Faith | Nothing | People | Virtue | Virtue |
There's only any point in believing something if it's not true. And it's not just faith itself: it's the idea that faith is a virtue and the less evidence there is, the more virtuous it is. Things for which there is mere evidence are just too easy, and it's no test of faith. In order to have a test of your faith, you must be asked to believe really daft things like the transubstantiation, you know, the blood of Christ turning into wine, and stuff. That is so manifestly absurd that you've got to be a really great believer in order to believe it. You're actually showing off your believing credentials by the ability to believe something like that. If it were an easy thing to believe, substantiated by facts, then it wouldn't be any great achievement.
Ability | Absurd | Evidence | Faith | Order | Virtue | Virtue |
Richard Maurice Bucke, often called Maurice Bucke
Cosmic Consciousness ... is a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man. This last is called Self Consciousness and is that faculty upon which rests all of our life (both subjective and objective) which is not common to us and the higher animals, except that small part of it which is derived from the few individuals who have had the higher consciousness above named. To make the matter clear it must be understood that there are three forms or grades of consciousness. (1) Simple Consciousness, which is possessed by say the upper half of the animal kingdom. By means of this faculty a dog or a horse is just as conscious of the things about him as a man is; he is also conscious of his own limbs and body and he knows that these are a part of himself. (2) Over and above this Simple Consciousness, which is possessed by man as by animals, man has another which is called Self Consciousness. By virtue of this faculty man is not only conscious of trees, rocks, waters, his own limbs and body, but he becomes conscious of himself as a distinct entity apart from all the rest of the universe. It is as good as certain that no animal can realize himself in that way. ... The animal is, as it were, immersed in his consciousness as a fish in the sea, he cannot, even in imagination, get outside of it for one moment so as to realize it. ... Cosmic Consciousness is a third form which is as far above Self Consciousness as is that above Simple Consciousness. With this form, of course, both simple and self consciousness persist (as simple consciousness persists when self consciousness is acquired), but added to them is the new faculty ... The prime characteristic of cosmic consciousness is, as its name implies, a consciousness of the cosmos, that is, of the life and order of the universe ... Along with the consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment or illumination which alone would place the individual on a new plane of existence
Body | Consciousness | Enlightenment | Existence | Good | Individual | Life | Life | Man | Means | Order | Rest | Self | Universe | Virtue | Virtue |
If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we must stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes.
Angels | Common Sense | Greed | Happy | Justice | Land | Little | Lust | Risk | Sense | Stupidity | Virtue | Virtue |
Titles, indeed, may be purchased; but virtue is the only coin that makes the bargain valid.
Robert Service, fully Robert William Service
My Library - Like prim Professor of a College I primed my shelves with books of knowledge; And now I stand before them dumb, Just like a child that sucks its thumb, And stares forlorn and turns away, With dolls or painted bricks to play. They glour at me, my tomes of learning. You dolt! they jibe; you undiscerning Moronic oaf, you make a fuss, With highbrow swank selecting us; Saying: I'll read you all some day' - And now you yawn and turn away. Unwanted wait we with our store Of facts and philosophic lore; The scholarship of all the ages Snug packed within our uncut pages; The mystery of all mankind In part revealed - but you are blind. You have no time to read, you tell us; Oh, do not think that we are jealous Of all the trash that wins your favour, The flimsy fiction that you savour: We only beg that sometimes you Will spare us just an hour or two. For all the minds that went to make us Are dust if folk like you forsake us, And they can only live again By virtue of your kindling brain; In magic print they packed their best: Come - try their wisdom to digest… Said I: Alas! I am not able; I lay my cards upon the table, And with deep shame and blame avow I am too old to read you now; So I will lock you in glass cases And shun your sad, reproachful faces. My library is noble planned, Yet in it desolate I stand; And though my thousand books I prize, Feeling a witling in their eyes, I turn from them in weariness To wallow in the Daily Press. For, oh, I never, never will The noble field of knowledge till: I pattern words with artful tricks, As children play with painted bricks, And realize with futile woe, Nothing I know - nor want to know. My library has windowed nooks; And so I turn from arid books To vastitude of sea and sky, And like a child content am I With peak and plain and brook and tree, Crying: Behold! the books for me: Nature, be thou my Library!
Blame | Books | Children | Knowledge | Magic | Mystery | Play | Shame | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Words | Child | Old | Think |
John Denham, fully Sir John Denham
O happiness of blindness! now no beauty Inflames my lust; no other's goods my envy, Or misery my pity; no man's wealth Draws my respect; nor poverty my scorn, Yet still I see enough! man to himself Is a large prospect, raised above the level Of his low creeping thoughts; if then I have A world within myself, that world shall be My empire; there I'll reign, commanding freely, And willingly obey'd, secure from fear Of foreign forces, or domestic treasons.
Anthony Kenny, fully Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny
Internalized experiences of selfhood are linked to autobiographical narratives, which are linked to biographies, legal testimonies, and medical case histories, which are linked to forms of therapy and theories of the subject.
Control | Defects | Humility | Inclination | Judgment | Passion | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.
Government | History | People | Respect | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Government | Respect |
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or a right. There is only an up or down: up to man's age-old dream -- the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.