This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
People have generally three epochs in their confidence in man. In the first they believe him to be everything that is good, and they are lavish with their friendship and confidence. In the next, they have had experience, which has smitten down their confidence, and they; then have to be careful not to mistrust every one, and to put the worst construction upon everything. Later in life, they learn that the greater number of men have much; more good in them than bad, and that even when there is cause to blame, there is more reason to pity than condemn; and then a spirit of confidence again awakens within them.
Blame | Cause | Confidence | Experience | Good | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mistrust | People | Pity | Reason | Spirit | Wisdom | Friendship | Learn |
The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is
I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, and receives new truth as an angel for Heaven.
G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.
In every visible Creature there is a Body and a Spirit... or, more Active and more Passive Principle, which may fitly be termed Male and Female, by reason of that Analogy a Husband hath with his Wife. For as the ordinary Generation of Men requires a Conjunction and Co-operation of Male and Female; so also all Generations and Productions whatsoever they be, require an Union, and conformable Operation of those Two Principles, to wit, Spirit and Body; but the Spirit is an Eye or Light beholding its own proper Image, and the Body is a Tenebrosity or Darkness receiving that Image, when the Spirit looks thereinto, as when one sees himself in a Looking-Glass; for certainly he cannot so behold himself in the Transparent Air, nor in any Diaphanous Body, because the reflexion of an Image requires a certain opacity or darkness, which we call a Body: Yet to be a Body is not an Essential property of any Thing; as neither is it a Property of any Thing to be dark; for nothing is so dark that nothing else, neither differs any thing from a Spirit, but in that it is more dark; therefore by how much the thicker and grosser it is become, so much the more remote it is from the degree of Spirit, so that this distinction is only modal and gradual, not essential or substantial.
Body | Darkness | Distinction | Husband | Light | Looks | Men | Nothing | Principles | Property | Reason | Spirit | Wife | Wisdom | Wit |
George B. Cortelyou, fully George Bruce Cortelyou
The greatest asset of any nation is the spirit of its people, and the greatest danger that can menace any nation is the breakdown of that spirit - the will to win and the courage to work.
Courage | Danger | People | Spirit | Will | Wisdom | Work | Danger |
Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
Conversation by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God’s grace lights up the dark heart.
Conversation | God | Grace | Heart | Soul | Spirit | Wisdom |
Despair is the offspring of fear; of laziness, and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and often of honesty too. I would not despair unless I saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate; and signed and sealed by necessity.
Despair | Fate | Fear | Honesty | Impatience | Laziness | Misfortune | Necessity | Resolution | Spirit | Wisdom | Misfortune |
Bartley Crum, fully Bartley Cavanaugh Crum
I believe, with all my heart, that the Spirit of God is within every man, however mean, ugly, or diseased; and that when we visit indignities upon other men, we are affronting our Creator, and we are also harming ourselves.
I must think forever: would an eternal train of my usual thoughts be either worthy of me or useful to me? I must feel forever: would an eternal reign of my present spirit and desires please or satisfy me? I must act forever: would an eternal course of my habitual conduct bring happiness, or even bear reflection?... Habits are soon assumed; but when we endeavor to strip them off, it is being flayed alive.
Conduct | Eternal | Present | Reflection | Spirit | Wisdom | Think |
Men are entitled to equal rights, but to equal rights in unequal things.
François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupations. Speak, move, work, in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be. Do everything with excitement, by the spirit of grace.
Excitement | Grace | Peace | Prayer | Spirit | Wisdom | Work |
Beneath a free government there is nothing but the intelligence of the people to keep the people’s peace. Order must be preserved, not by a military police or regiments of horse-guards, but by the spontaneous concert of a well-informed population, resolved that the rights which have been rescued from despotism shall not be subverted by anarchy.
Anarchy | Government | Intelligence | Nothing | Order | Peace | People | Rights | Wisdom | Government |
The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different - to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.
Body | Chance | Effort | Mind | Opportunity | Spirit | Unique | Wisdom | Child |