This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is of things heavenly and universal declaration, working in them whose hearts God inspireth with the due consideration thereof, and habit or disposition of mind whereby they are made fit vessels both for the receipt and delivery of whatsoever spiritual perfection.
Consideration | God | Habit | Mind | Perfection | Wisdom | God |
When a pump is frequently used, the water pours out at the first stroke, because it is high; but, if the pump has not been used for a long time, the water gets low, and when you want it you must pump a long while; and the water comes only after great efforts. It is so with prayer. If we are instant in prayer, every little circumstance awakens the disposition to pray, and desire and words are always ready; but, if we neglect prayer, it is difficult for us to pray, for the water in the well gets low.
Desire | Little | Neglect | Prayer | Time | Wisdom | Words | Circumstance |
Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley
One of the principal ingredients in the happiness of childhood is freedom from suspicion - why may it not be combined with a more extensive intercourse with mankind? A disposition to dwell on the bright side of character is like gold to its possessor; but to imagine more evil than meets the eye, betrays affinity for it.
Character | Childhood | Evil | Freedom | Gold | Mankind | Suspicion | Wisdom | Happiness |
We have become so preoccupied with power and control over nature that we have lost an important dimension of our being, the disposition of thankfulness, of commemoration, of perceiving and enjoying something for its own sake. Instead of viewing these immediate objects of our environment in terms of their own being, we have come to regard them solely in terms of what they are for us. And to such an exploitative mentality, nature’s own voice becomes mute. Approached as material merely, to be worked up and pressed into the service of a self-styled lord of creation, she contains no revelation and no blessing.
Control | Important | Lord | Nature | Power | Regard | Revelation | Self | Service | Thankfulness |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind. He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which he proposes to remove.
Contentment | Grief | Human nature | Knowledge | Life | Life | Little | Mind | Nature | Waste | Will | Happiness |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which he proposes to remove.
Grief | Human nature | Knowledge | Life | Life | Little | Nature | Waste | Will | Happiness |
One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him. The disposition of the first is subjective, of the second objective. The one is, in the whole of his existence, more in the nature of an idea which is merely presented, the other more of the being who presents it.
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Ability |
Happiness and misery depend as much on temperament as on fortune.
Fortune |
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament is in discourse; and ability is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and, perhaps, judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels and the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned.
If we attend to the experience of men’s conduct, we meet frequent and, as we ourselves allow, just complaints that one cannot find a single certain example of the disposition to act from pure duty. Although many things are done in conformity with what duty prescribes, it is nevertheless always doubtful whether they are done strictly from duty, so as to have moral worth.
Conduct | Conformity | Duty | Example | Experience | Men | Worth |
It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are mor than enough for others.
Enough | Opportunity | People | Time |