This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Unless a man has been kicked around a little, you can't really depend upon him to amount to anything.
Only the man who can impose discipline on himself is fit to discipline others or can impose discipline on others.
Character | Discipline | Man |
As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.
Cause | Character | Man | Matrimony | Means | Right | Surrender | Trifles | Wife | Wise |
Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.
Achai Gaon, known as Ahai of Sabha or Aha of Sabha
By benevolence man rises to a height where he meets God. Therefore do a good deed before you begin your prayers.
Benevolence | Character | God | Good | Man |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
What we give out as scientific truth is only the product of our own needs and desires, as they are formulated under varying external conditions; that is to say, it is illusion once more. Ultimately we find only what we need to find, and see only what we desire to see. We can do nothing else. And since the criterion of truth, correspondence with an external world, disappears, it is absolutely immaterial what views we accept. All of them are equally true and false. And no one has a right to accuse any one else of error.
Character | Desire | Error | Illusion | Need | Nothing | Right | Truth | World |
What a man accomplishes in a day depends upon the way in which he approaches his tasks. When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm miracles can happen. When we do our work with a dynamic conquering spirit we get things done.
Ability | Challenge | Character | Day | Dynamic | Enthusiasm | Joy | Man | Miracles | Spirit | Work |
We settle things by a majority vote, and the psychological effect of doing that is to create the impression that the majority is probably right. Of course, on any fine issue the majority is sure to be wrong. Think of taking a majority vote on the best music. Jazz would win over Chopin. Or on the best novel. Many cheap scribblers would win over Tolstoy. And any day a prizefight will get a bigger crowd, larger gate receipts and wider newspaper publicity than any new revelation of goodness, truth or beauty could hope to achieve in a century.
Beauty | Character | Day | Hope | Impression | Majority | Music | Revelation | Right | Truth | Will | Wrong | Beauty | Think |
My friends, how desperately do we need to be loved and to love. When Christ said that man does not live by bread alone, he spoke of a hunger. This hunger was no the hunger of the body. It was not the hunger for bread. He spoke of a hunger that begins deep down in the very depths of our being. He spoke of a need as vital as breath. He spoke of our hunger for love. Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. We turn inward and begin to feed upon our own personalities, and little by little we destroy ourselves. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.
Body | Character | Courage | Destroy | Esteem | Hunger | Little | Love | Man | Need | Sacrifice | Self | Self-esteem | Spirit | World |
If a man thinks about his physical or moral state, he usually discovers that he is ill.
Getting alone with others is the essence of getting ahead, success being linked with cooperation.
Character | Cooperation | Success |
There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may; be sometimes temptations to be otherwise; but, all cares cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which in all assays, can in himself protect him.
Character | Fame | Man | Obligation | Pleasure |
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, born Margaret Power
One of the almost numberless advantages of goodness is, that it blinds its possessor to many of those faults in others which could not fail to be detected by the morally defective. A consciousness of unworthiness renders people extremely quick-sighted in discerning the vices of their neighbors; as person scan easily discover in others the symptoms of those diseases beneath which they themselves have suffered.
Character | Consciousness | People |