This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A person easily becomes a slave to his habits. The most difficult habits to break are the habits of thinking in a certain manner. You can have a large amount of control over yourself by working to obtain positive habits. Even with habits of thoughts, we have the ability to utilize the power of habit to form the habit of thinking rationally and productively, and to elevate our thoughts to such a degree that we will have changed our entire thought patterns for the better.
Ability | Better | Character | Control | Habit | Power | Thinking | Thought | Will | Thought |
What is more mortifying than to feel that you've missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?
Maturity is a quality of personality made up of a number of elements. It is stick-to-itiveness, the ability to stick to a job, to work on it and to struggle through it until it is finished, or until one has given all one has in the endeavor. It is the quality or capacity of giving more than is asked or required in a given situation. It is this characteristic that enables others to count on one; thus it is reliability. Persistence is an aspect of maturity; persistence to carry out a a goal in the face of difficulties. Endurance enters into the concept of maturity; the endurance of difficulties, unpleasantness, discomfort, frustration, hardship. The ability to size things up, make one's own decisions, is a characteristic of maturity. This implies a considerable amount of independence. A mature person is not dependent unless ill. Maturity includes a determination, a will to succeed and achieve, a will to live. Of course, maturity represents the capacity to cooperate; to work with others; to work in an organization and under authority. The mature person is flexible, can defer to time, persons, circumstances. He can show tolerance. He can be patient, and, above all, he has qualities of adaptability and compromise. Basically, maturity represents a wholesome amalgamation of two things: 1) Dissatisfaction with the status quo, which calls forth aggressive, constructive effort, and 2) Social concern and devotion. Emotional maturity is the morale of the individual.
Ability | Adaptability | Authority | Capacity | Character | Circumstances | Determination | Devotion | Effort | Endurance | Giving | Individual | Organization | Persistence | Personality | Qualities | Reliability | Size | Struggle | Time | Will | Work |
Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele
To have good sense and ability to express it are the most essential and necessary qualities in companions. When thoughts rise in us fit to utter among familiar friends, there needs but very little care in clothing them.
Ability | Care | Character | Good | Little | Qualities | Sense |
Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.
Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to preserve. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.
Character | Courage | Death | Fortune | Grace | Mind | Peril | Quiet | Strength | Friends |
Isaac Abravanel, fully Don Itshak ben Yehouda Abravanel
The reward of the souls in the world beyond is their ability to attain the true concept of God which is a source of the most wonderful felicity, an attainment impossible for man in this early life because of the disturbances on the part of matter.
Ability | Attainment | God | Life | Life | Man | Reward | Wisdom | World | God |
While an open mind is priceless, it is priceless only when its owner has the courage to make a final decision which closes the mind for action after the process of viewing all sides of the question has been completed. Failure to make a decision after due consideration of all the facts will quickly brand a man unfit for a position of responsibility. Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is perfect. But if you get into the habit of making decisions, experience will develop your judgment to a point where more and more of your decisions will be right. After all, it is better to be right 51 percent of the time and get something done, than it is to get nothing done because you fear to reach a decision.
Action | Better | Consideration | Courage | Decision | Experience | Failure | Fear | Habit | Judgment | Man | Mind | Nothing | Position | Question | Responsibility | Right | Time | Will | Wisdom | Failure |
John M. Wilson, fully John Moulder Wilson
Let's learn and label properly Disappointment and Discouragement for what they are - two completely different states of mind. Disappointment can be a spur to improvement that will contribute to success. But Discouragement is a mortal enemy that destroys courage and robs one of the will to fight. It is not circumstance that causes Discouragement, but one's own reaction to that circumstance. Everyone must meet Disappointment, many times; it is simply a part of life. When it is met, we may resign ourselves to Discouragement and failure. Or we may recognize each Disappointment as an asset by which we can profit, and take new strength from a lesson learned. The choice is ours, each time, to make.
Character | Choice | Courage | Enemy | Failure | Improvement | Lesson | Life | Life | Mind | Mortal | Strength | Success | Time | Will | Wisdom | Circumstance | Learn |
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.
In our thinking we must preserve an open and enquiring mind, an ability to see things through the eyes of our opponents, a skill for understanding the motives and thoughts of those whom we oppose. Yet we must act in the light of the best knowledge and reason available to us at the moment.
Ability | Character | Knowledge | Light | Mind | Motives | Reason | Skill | Thinking | Understanding | Wisdom |
We can accomplish almost anything within our ability if we but think we can! Every great achievement in this world was first carefully thought out... Think - but to a purpose. Think constructively. Think as you read. Think as you listen. Think as you travel and eyes reveal new situations. Think as you work daily at your place in life. There can be no advancement or success without serious thought.
Ability | Achievement | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Success | Thought | Wisdom | Work | World | Think | Thought |