This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation-free; let no man boast that he was never tempted, let him not be high-minded, but fear, for he may be surprised in that very instant wherein he boasteth that he was never tempted at all.
Age | Fear | Man | Temptation | Wisdom |
High birth is a thing which I never knew any one to disparage except those who had it not; and I never knew any; one to make a boast of it who had anything else to be proud of.
Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
In times of revolution, people boast almost as much about the imaginary crimes they propose to commit as, in normal times, they do of the good intentions they pretend to entertain.
Good | People | Revolution | Wisdom |
Whatever accomplishment you boast of in the world, there is someone better than you.
Accomplishment | Better | World |
Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
Achievement | Mankind |
Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility of bearing, a facial and bodily repose are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fear, his greeds, his blunder. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace.
Consciousness | Demeanor | Fear | Grace | Humility | Journey | Man | Obligation | Prayer | Pride | Repose | Selfishness | Sense | Soul |
Those who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this we live in have at least one thing to plead in defensed of their idolatry - the power of their idol. It is true that, like other idols, it can neither move, see, hear, feel, nor understand; but, unlike other idols, it has often communicated all these powers to those she had them not, and annihilated them in those who had. This idol can boast of two peculiarities; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.
We often boast that we are never bored, but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others.
No one, it is true, will be able to boast that he knows that he knows there is a God and a future life; for, it he knows this, he is just the man whom I have long wished to find... My conviction is not logical, but moral certainty; and since it rests on subjective grounds (of the moral sentiment), I must not even say: It is morally certain that there is a God, etc., but: I am morally certain, that is, my belief in God and in another world is so interwoven with my moral nature that I am under as little apprehension of having the former torn from me as of losing the latter.
Belief | Future | God | Life | Life | Little | Man | Nature | Sentiment | Will | World | God |
The moment a man can really do his work, he becomes speechless about it; all words are idle to him; all theories. Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is essentially done that way; without hesitation; without difficulty; without boasting.
Boasting | Difficulty | Good | Man | Need | Theories | Words | Work |
The soul must not boast that it is more holy than the body, for only in that it has climbed down into the body and works through its limbs can the soul attain to its perfection. The body on the other hand, may not brag of supporting the soul, for when the soul leaves, the flesh falls into decay.
Body | Perfection | Soul |
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease, and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord; and the supreme arts of temperance, of justice, and of wisdom, as they are acts of judgment and selection, exercised not on good and just and expedient only, but also on wicked, unjust, and inexpedient objects, do not give their commendations to the mere innocence whose boast is its inexperience of evil, and whose utter name is, by their award, simpleness and ignorance of what all men who live aright should know.
Disease | Evil | Good | Harmony | Health | Ignorance | Innocence | Judgment | Justice | Men | Music | Wisdom |