This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal
Every aspect of our lives is a challenge and a test. With this perspective, life will never be boring or mundane. Every single situation and occurrence is different from each other and each is an opportunity for elevation and growth.
Challenge | Character | Growth | Life | Life | Opportunity | Will |
A coward flees backward, away from new things. A man of courage flees forward, in the midst of new things.
There is no right without parallel duty, no liberty without the supremacy of the law, no high destiny without earnest perseverance, no greatness without self-denial.
Character | Destiny | Duty | Greatness | Law | Liberty | Perseverance | Right | Self | Self-denial |
One of the marks of true greatness is the ability to develop greatness in others.
The way to educate youngsters is to elevate them by pointing out the greatness that can be theirs if they utilize their potential.
Bruno Lessing, pseudonymn for Randolph Edgar Block
The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness - one who loves life, and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a golden temper, and steadfast as an anchor.
Every desire for power, ability, wisdom, harmony, life, greatness will impress itself upon the subconscious and will cause the thing desired to be produced in the great within. What is produced in the within will come forth into expression in the personality; therefore, by knowing how to impress the subconscious, man may give his personal self any quality desired, in any quantity desired. What man may desire to become, that he can become, and the art of directing and impressing the subconscious is the secret. The perpetual awakening of the great within will produce a greatness, because to the powers and the possibilities of the great within there is no limit, neither is there any end.
Ability | Art | Awakening | Cause | Character | Desire | Greatness | Harmony | Knowing | Life | Life | Man | Personality | Power | Self | Will | Wisdom | Art |
Frederick Loomis, fully Sir Frederick Oscar Warren Loomis
Moaning over what cannot be helped is a confession of futility and fear, of emotional stagnation - in fact, of selfishness and cowardice. The best way to "snap out of it" is to stop thinking about yourself, and start thinking about other people. You can lighten your own load by doing something for someone else. By the simple device of doing an outward, unselfish act today, you can make the past recede. The present and future will again take on their true challenge and perspective.
Challenge | Character | Cowardice | Fear | Future | Past | People | Present | Selfishness | Thinking | Will | Wisdom |
A. E. Mander, fully Alfred Ernest Mander
Never be afraid to challenge an axiom.
Great men... have been characterized by the greatness of their mistakes as well as by the greatness of their achievements.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.
Authority | Beginning | Character | Courage | Custom | Little | Power | Time |