This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
George Lyttleton, 1st Baron Lyttleton of Frankley
Even the happiest choice, where favoring heaven has equal love and easy fortune given, think not, the husband gained, that all is done; the prize of happiness must still be won; and, oft, the careless find it to their cost, the lover in the husband may be lost; the graces might, alone, his heart allure; they and the virtues, meeting, must secure.
Choice | Cost | Fortune | Heart | Heaven | Husband | Love | Wisdom | Happiness | Think |
Metastasio, aka Pietro Petastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi NULL
O, how full of error is the judgment of mankind. They wonder at results when they are ignorant of the reasons. They call it fortune when they know not the cause, and thus worship their own ignorance changed into a deity.
Cause | Error | Fortune | Ignorance | Judgment | Mankind | Wisdom | Wonder | Worship |
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
The greatest security of the liberties of a people who do not cultivate the earth is their not knowing the use of money... The people who have no money have but few wants; and these are supplied with ease, and in an equal manner. Equality is then unavoidable; and hence it proceeds that their chiefs are not despotic.
Earth | Equality | Knowing | Money | People | Security | Wants | Wisdom |
The meaning of life is to be found in our surroundings and in our relationships... Life is meaningful when we respect the best of tradition while still loving innovation... Life is fulfilling when we marry pride with tolerance, when our deeds and our words are nourished by hope and by realism, when the wisdom of the ages catches the passionate eye of youth. Life on this earth in our time is, above all, a parade of interdependent peoples, interdependent ideas, interdependent solutions. We are all artists of the possible - and dreamers of that which is just now beyond our reach, but may not be tomorrow.
Deeds | Earth | Hope | Ideas | Innovation | Interdependent | Life | Life | Meaning | Pride | Respect | Time | Tomorrow | Tradition | Wisdom | Words | Youth | Deeds | Respect |
To be mistaken is a misfortune to be pitied; but to know the truth and not to conform one's actions to it is a crime which Heaven and Earth condemn.
Crime | Earth | Heaven | Misfortune | Truth | Wisdom | Misfortune |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The only good histories are those that have been written by the very men who were in command in the affairs, or who were participants in the conduct of them or who at least have had the fortune to conduct others of the same sort... What can you expect of a doctor discussing war, or a schoolboy discussing the intentions of princes?
It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.
When Fortune favors a man too much she makes him a fool.
Antoine de Rivarol, also known as Comte de Rivarol
The methods that help a man acquire a fortune are the very ones that keep him from enjoying it.
That is a most wretched fortune which is without an enemy.
The sea does not contain all the pearls, the earth does not enclose all the treasures, and the flint-stone does not enclose all the diamonds, since the head of man encloses wisdom.