This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.
Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost possible achievement - these are the martial virtues which must command success.
Achievement | Character | Daring | Force | Opportunity | Persistence | Success | Tact | Vigilance |
Francis Walsingham, fully Sir Francis Walsingham
Every virtue gives a man a degree of felicity in some kind: honesty gives a man a good report; justice, estimation; prudence, respect; courtesy and liberality, affection; temperance gives health; fortitude, a quiet mind, not to be moved by any adversity.
Adversity | Character | Courtesy | Estimation | Fortitude | Good | Health | Honesty | Justice | Man | Mind | Prudence | Prudence | Quiet | Respect | Virtue | Virtue |
Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.
John W. Daniel, fully John Warwick Daniel
Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us - a fair and open manuscript. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech - the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime.
Attention | Character | Charity | Conduct | Crime | Difficulty | Diplomacy | Events | Giving | Intrigue | Life | Life | Means | Men | Mystery | Order | Power | Providence | Purity | Selfishness | Service | Speech | Tact | Understanding | Wisdom | Wise |
There is no outward sign of courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything.
We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness about us at little expense. Some of them will fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues; twice blest, sometimes.
Benevolence | Courtesy | Good | Kindness | Little | Will | Happiness |
Miserable indeed is a world in which we have knowledge without understanding, criticism without appreciation, beauty without love, truth without passion, righteousness without mercy, and courtesy without a warm heart!
Appreciation | Beauty | Courtesy | Criticism | Heart | Knowledge | Love | Mercy | Passion | Righteousness | Truth | Understanding | World | Beauty |
Mencius, born Meng Ke or Ko NULL
No person is without sense of compassion, or a sense of shame, or a sense of courtesy, or a sense of right and wrong. The sense of compassion is the beginning of humanity; the sense of shame is the beginning of righteousness; the sense of courtesy is the beginning of decorum [li]; the sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Every person has within him these four beginnings; just as he has four limbs.
Beginning | Compassion | Courtesy | Humanity | Right | Righteousness | Sense | Shame | Wisdom | Wrong |