This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.
When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
Mind | Nature | Order | Religion | Sacrifice | Surrender | Happiness |
It is profit which draws men into enormous unmanageable aggregations called towns, for instance; profit which crowds them up when they are there into quarters without gardens or open spaces; profit which won’t take the most ordinary precautions against wrapping a whole district in a cloud of sulphurous smoke; which turns beautiful rivers into filthy sewers, which condemns all but the rich to live in houses idiotically cramped and confined at the best, and at the worst in houses for whose wretchedness there is no name
A man's worth has its season, like fruit.
Unhappiness | Happiness |
Before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already possess it.
The happiness or unhappiness of men depends no less upon their dispositions than their fortunes.
Men | Mind | Unhappiness | Happiness |
The less you trust others, the less you will be deceived.
Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous; our star, that of the public.
It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.
The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.
Men | Unhappiness | Happiness |
Oh, how this spring of life resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And, by and by, a cloud takes all away!
Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful In the contempt and anger of his lip!
Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.
Generosity | Gluttony | Men | Taste | Happiness |
I am present in front of anyone who has faith in me, just as the moon casts its reflection, effortlessly, in any vessel filled with water.
Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
The life of an uneducated man is as useless as the tail of a dog which neither covers its rear end, nor protects it from the bites of insects.
Peace | Tranquility | Happiness |
War comes today as the result of one of three causes: either actual or threatened wrong by one country to another, or suspicion by one country that another intends to do it wrong ... or, from bitterness of feeling, dependent in no degree whatever upon substantial questions of difference. . . . The least of these three causes of war is actual injustice.
Brotherhood | Charity | Desire | Duty | Individual | Judgment | Love | Malice | People | Progress | Prosperity | Regard | Sentiment | Happiness |