This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Not by age but by character is wisdom attained.
In the destiny of every moral being there is an object more worthy of God than happiness. It is character. And the grand aim of man's creation is the development of grand character - and grand character is, by its very nature, the product of probationary discipline.
Character | Destiny | Discipline | God | Man | Nature | Object | God |
A man's own character is the arbiter of his fortune.
Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and angels know of us.
The idea of soul, as a pure ego or mental substance, persists tenaciously in philosophy. I have argued that it cannot satisfactorily discharge the various tasks for which it has been recruited. The body, with marginal, speculative and dependent exceptions, is all that is required to individuate experiences and to supply then with an owner. An unobservable mental substance cannot individuate and provides a merely formal, because wholly inscrutable, solution to the problem of ownership. It is equally, and even more obviously, inept as an explanation of the identity of a person through time, which rests, not on the body, but on the complex of a person’s character and memories, related by continuity.
I have learned by experience that no man’s character can be eventually injured but by his own acts.
Character | Experience | Man |
Each person is a one time phenomenon, an occurrence that has never been before and will never be again. You have a unique blend of character traits and personality. You are unique in your particular family constellation, born in a specific time of history and in a specific environment. This uniqueness gives you great importance. Only you can accomplish your unique life tasks.
Character | Family | History | Life | Life | Personality | Time | Unique | Will |
To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial; and able to bear the wear and tear of actual life. Cloistered virtues do not count for much.
Character | Life | Life | Temptation | Work | World | Worth |
Strength of character is not measured by who we support but by knowing we all lean on one another.