This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.
Censure | Falsehood | Praise | Self | Self-praise | Superiority | Wisdom |
He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by the very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection.
Courage | Despondency | Giving | Good | Means | Men | Perfection | Resolution | Strength | Weakness | Will | Wisdom | Wise |
Horace Fletcher, nicknamed "The Great Masticator"
The underlying cause of all weakness and unhappiness is man has always been, and still is, weak habit-of-thought.
Cause | Habit | Man | Thought | Unhappiness | Weakness | Wisdom |
Without my work in natural science I should never have known human beings as they really are. In no other activity can one come so close to direct perception and clear thought, or realize so fully the errors of the senses, the mistakes of the intellect, the weakness and greatnesses of human character.
Character | Perception | Science | Thought | Weakness | Wisdom | Work |
Jose ben Hanina, or Rabbi Yossi bar Hanina
Love without criticism is not love.
When you praise someone you call yourself his equal.
Never speak by superlatives; for in so doing you will be likely to wound either truth or prudence. Exaggeration is neither thoughtful, wise, nor safe. It is a proof of the weakness of the understanding, or the want of discernment of him that utters it, so that even when he speaks the truth, he soon finds it is received with partial, or even utter disbelief.
Disbelief | Discernment | Exaggeration | Prudence | Prudence | Safe | Truth | Understanding | Weakness | Will | Wisdom | Wise |
The aging man of the middle twentieth century lives, not in the public world of atomic physics and conflicting ideologies, of welfare states and supersonic speed, but in his strictly private universe of physical weakness and mental decay.
Education: To be at home in all lands and ages; to count Nature as a familiar acquaintance and Art an intimate friend; to gain a standard for the appreciation of other men's work and the criticism of one's own; to carry the keys of the world's library in one's pocket, and feel its resources behind one in whatever task he undertakes; to make hosts of friends among the men of one's own age who are the leaders in all walks of life; to lose oneself in general enthusiasms and co-operate with others for common ends.
Acquaintance | Age | Appreciation | Art | Criticism | Education | Ends | Friend | Life | Life | Men | Nature | Wisdom | Work | World | Appreciation | Art | Friends |
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising by mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness the bitterest blast of adversity.
Adversity | Dependence | Firmness | Force | Husband | Life | Life | Misfortune | Nothing | Weakness | Wisdom |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our powers of judgment are more completely exposed by being overpraised than by being unjustly underestimated.
Creativity is a flower that praise brings to bloom, but discouragement often nips in the bud.
Creativity | Praise | Wisdom |