This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
He who will not curb his passion, will wish that undone which his grief and resentment suggested, while he violently plies his revenge with unsated rancor. Rage is a short madness. Rule your passion, which commands, if it do not obey; do not restrain it with a bridle, and with fetters.
Character | Grief | Madness | Passion | Rage | Rancor | Resentment | Revenge | Rule | Will |
Conceit is just as natural a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded people’s thoughts move in such small circles that five minute’s’ conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect does not differ sensibly from a straight line.
Character | Conversation | Enough | Little | People | Intellect |
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.
Character | Desire | Enemy | Man | Prudence | Prudence | Revenge |
A sincere acquaintance with ourselves teaches us humility; and from humility springs that benevolence which compassionates the transgressors we condemn, and prevents the punishments we inflict from themselves partaking of crime, in being rather the wreaking of revenge than the chastisements of virtue.
Acquaintance | Benevolence | Character | Crime | Humility | Revenge | Virtue | Virtue |
John H. Aughey, fully John Hill Aughey
Sensual pleasures are like soap bubbles, sparkling effervescent. The pleasures of intellect are calm, beautiful, sublime and ever enduring.
It is by what we ourselves have done, and not by what others have done for us, that we shall be remembered after ages. It is by thought that has aroused the intellect from its slumbers, which has given luster to virtue and dignity to truth, or by those examples which have inflamed the soul with the love of goodness.
Character | Dignity | Love | Soul | Thought | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Intellect | Thought |
Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson
Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
The commerce of intellect loves distant shores. The small retail dealer trades only with his neighbor; when the great merchant trades he links the four quarters of the globe.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
Money never can be well managed if sought solely through the greed of money for its own sake. In all meanness there is a defect of intellect as well as of heart. And event he cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.
Avarice | Cunning | Greed | Heart | Meanness | Money | Wisdom | Intellect |