This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
In order to love simply, it is necessary to know how to show love.
It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he - with his specialized knowledge - more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person.
Character | Good | Knowledge | Sense | Understanding |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion: a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.
Character | Discernment | Knowledge | Soul |
Lord Ellenborough, fully Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough
The greater the truth the greater the libel.
The best reward of a kindly deed is the knowledge of having done it.
W. Macneile Dixon, fully William Macneile Dixon
The astonishing thing about him [man] is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals, far removed from his material surroundings and animal activities, and in no way suggested by them, yet for which, such is his affection, he is willing to endure toils and privations, to sacrifice pleasures, to disdain griefs and frustrations. The inner truth is that every man is himself a creator, by birth and nature, an artist, an architect and fashioner of worlds.
Birth | Character | Disdain | Ideals | Ideas | Man | Nature | Passion | Sacrifice | Truth | Vision |
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himsefl without love he gives away his passions and coarse pleasuures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himsefl. The man wholies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone.
Character | Distinguish | Love | Lying | Man | Men | Order | Respect | Truth | Respect |
Personal magnetism is a mixture of rugged Honesty, pulsating Energy, and self-organized Intelligence. I believe, absolutely, that truth is the strongest and most powerful weapon a man can use, whether he is fighting for a reform or fighting for a sale.
Character | Energy | Fighting | Honesty | Intelligence | Man | Reform | Self | Truth |
Jealousy: that dragon which slays love under the pretense of keeping it alive.
Cyrus the Great, aka Cyrus the Elder, Cyrus II or Cyrus of Persia NULL
All men have their frailties; and whoever looks for a friend without imperfections, will never find what he seeks. We love ourselves notwithstanding our faults, and we ought to love our friends in like manner.
Character | Frailties | Friend | Looks | Love | Men | Will | Friends |
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.