This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL
The trouble of the many and various aims of mortal men bring them much care, and herein they go forward by different paths but strive to reach one end, which is happiness. And that good is that, to which if any man attain, he can desire nothing further... Happiness is a state which is made perfect by the union of all good things. This end all men seek to reach, as I said, though by different paths. For there is implanted by nature in the minds of men a desire for the true good; but error leads them astray towards false goods by wrong paths.
Aims | Care | Character | Desire | Error | Good | Man | Men | Mortal | Nature | Nothing | Wrong | Trouble | Happiness |
Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of what he is not.
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, born Soong Mei-ling or May-ling
In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions. Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurture for growth and development. Thus also, day by day, we write our own destiny; for inexorably we become what we do. This I believe, is the supreme logic and the law of life.
Character | Day | Destiny | Growth | Heart | Law | Life | Life | Logic | Time |
G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
High aims form high characters, and great objects bring out great minds.
Declaration of Indian Purpose NULL
A treaty, in the minds of our people, is an eternal word. Events often make it seem expedient to depart from the pledged word, but we are conscious that the first departure creates a logic for the second departure, until there is nothing left of the word.
He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain a very poor creature, for riches are no proof of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glowworm's light reveals the grub.
Attention | Character | Light | Logic | Man | Riches | Worth | Riches |
Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson
The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.
Absolute | Achievement | Justice | Logic | Man | Men | Perfection | Purity | Wisdom |
Stewart Udall, Fully Stewart Lee Udall
A land ethic for tomorrow should be as honest as Thoreau's Walden, and as comprehensive as the sensitive science of ecology. It should stress the oneness of our resources and the live-and-help-live logic of the great chain of life. If, in our haste to "progress," the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and policy makers alike, the result will be an ugly America.
Character | Economics | Haste | Land | Life | Life | Logic | Oneness | Policy | Progress | Science | Tomorrow | Ugly | Will |
Most mistakes in philosophy and logic occur because the human mind is apt to take the symbol for the reality.
Logic | Mind | Philosophy | Reality | Wisdom |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Civilization aims at making all good things... accessible even to cowards.
Aims | Civilization | Good | Wisdom |
Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL
Nature I believe in. True art aims to represent men and women, not as my little self would have them, but as they appear. My heroes and heroines I want not extreme types, all good or all bad; but human, mortal—partly good, partly bad. Realism I need. Pure mental abstractions have no significance for me.
Aims | Art | Beauty | Extreme | Familiarity | Good | Little | Men | Self | Wisdom | Art | Realism |
Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.
Capitalism | Civilization | Logic | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |