This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Strange and hard that paradox true I give, objects gross and the unseen soul are one.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
It is with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace... Even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him!
Battle | Desire | Fear | Love | Man | Men | Nature | Peace | Pleasure | War | Wisdom |
Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, fully Arthur James Balfour, aka Lord Balfour
Every human soul is of infinite value, eternal, free; no human being, therefore, is so places as not to have within his reach, in himself and others, objects adequate to infinite endeavor.
Eugene P. Bertin, fully Eugene Peter Bertin
Honest work bears a lovely face for it is the father of pleasure and the mother of good fortune. It is the keystone of prosperity and the sire of fame. And best of all, work is relief from sorrow and the handmaiden of happiness.
Fame | Father | Fortune | Good | Mother | Pleasure | Prosperity | Sorrow | Wisdom | Work |
It is a paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. As a matter of experience, we find that true happiness comes in seeking other things, in the manifold activities of life, in the healthful outgoing of all human powers.
Experience | Life | Life | Paradox | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Wisdom | Happiness |
Though selfishness hath defiled the whole man, yet sensual pleasure is the chief part of its interest, and therefore by the senses it commonly works, and these are the doors and the windows by which iniquity entereth the soul.
Man | Pleasure | Selfishness | Soul | Wisdom |
Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Body | Health | Individual | Liberty | Man | Pleasure | Society | Wisdom | Happiness |
William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Body | Health | Individual | Liberty | Man | Pleasure | Society | Wisdom | Happiness |
If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the great cities! The necessaries of life do not occasion at most a third part of the hurry.
Curiosity | Hurry | Life | Life | Love | Mirth | Money | Pleasure | Wisdom |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
The imagination acquires by custom a certain involuntary, unconscious power of observation and comparison, correcting its own mistakes and arriving at precision of judgment, just as the outward eye is disciplined to compare, adjust, estimate, measure, the objects reflected on the back of its retina. The imagination is but the faculty of glassing images; and it is with exceeding difficulty, and by the imperative will of the reasoning faculty resolved to mislead it, that it glasses images which have no prototype in truth and nature.
Custom | Difficulty | Imagination | Judgment | Nature | Observation | Power | Precision | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Precision |
The most delicate, the most sensible, of all pleasures consists in promoting the pleasure of others.
William Cecil, Lord Burghley, 1st Baron Burghley, also Lord William Cecil Burleigh
Beware of suretyship for thy best friend. He that payeth another man’s debt seeketh his own decay. But if thou canst not otherwise choose, rather lend the money thyself upon good bonds, although thou borrow it; so shalt thou secure thyself, and pleasure thy friend.