This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In reality a major part of pleasure in obtaining things is overcoming the obstructions that stood in our way. Once we realize this, we will be able to decrease our desire for those things that are spiritually or physically harmful just by examining them objectively and seeing that we are not missing so much. At the same time, we can gain more pleasure from spiritual accomplishments by focusing on how much we are missing in this area and can feel the sense of accomplishment in overcoming the necessary difficulties.
Accomplishment | Character | Desire | Pleasure | Reality | Sense | Time | Will |
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
Everyone is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything... Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for the crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge... But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.
Blame | Character | Crime | Man | Men | Mind | Will | Wisdom | Afraid |
Inside the souls of wealthy men bleak famine lives while minds of stature struggle trapped in starving bodies. How then can man distinguish man, what test can he use? The test of wealth? That measure means poverty of mind; of poverty? The pauper owns one thing, the sickness of his condition, a compelling teacher of evil; by nerve in war? Yet who, when a spear is cast across his face, will stand to witness his companion’s courage? We can only toss our judgments random on the wind.
Character | Courage | Distinguish | Evil | Man | Means | Men | Mind | Poverty | Struggle | War | Wealth | Will | Witness | Teacher |
e. e. cummings, fully Edward Estlin Cummings
To be nobody-but-myself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
Charles de Gaulle, fully Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
The man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.
Character | Difficulty | Man |
Joseph Francis Eduard Desmahis
We cannot do evil to others without doing it to ourselves.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
Without some goal and some effort to reach it, no man can live.
The World is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the World will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The World is what you are.
Preventives of evil are far better than remedies; cheaper and easier of application, and surer of result.
What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
Character | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Organic | Question | Religion | Sense |
The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind, bravery is forethought.
Charles de Gaulle, fully Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself.
Living means constantly striving to do what you want to do.