This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.
He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.
Ability | Achievement | Awareness | Confidence | Effort | Failure | Inspiration | Misfortune | Patience | Persistence | Will | Talent | Failure | Awareness |
For a wrongdoer to be undetected is difficult; and for him to have confidence that his concealment will continue is impossible.
Concealment | Confidence | Will |
What harm in getting knowledge even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a mitten, or a slipper?
In the present state of medical knowledge a pronouncement of the sentence of "Incurable" on a patient places a serious responsibility on the physician and implies a greater knowledge than he possesses.
Knowledge | Present | Responsibility |
Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall. But in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
Angels | Charity | Danger | Desire | Error | Excess | Knowledge | Man | Power | Virtue | Virtue | Danger |
The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will: for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning.
Belief | Earth | Knowledge | Law | Learning | Man | Men | Mind | Power | Reason | Understanding | Will |
The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.
The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.
Knowledge | Light | Man | Nature | Revelation |
Wisdom consists in the highest use of the intellect for the discernment of the largest moral interest of humanity. It is the most perfect willingness to do the right combined with the utmost attainable knowledge of what is right… Wisdom consists in working for the better from the love of the best.
Better | Discernment | Humanity | Knowledge | Love | Right | Wisdom | Intellect |
If we had no motivation to be preoccupied with our sensations, the impressions that objects made on us would pass like shadows, and leave no trace. After several years, we would be the same as we were at our first moment, without having acquired any knowledge, and without having any other faculties than feeling. But the nature of our sensations does not let us remain enslaved in this lethargy. Since they are necessarily agreeable or disagreeable, we are involved in seeking the former, avoiding the latter; and the greater the intensity of difference between pleasure and pain, the more it occasions action in our souls. Thus the privation of an object that we judge necessary for our well-being, gives us disquiet, that uneasiness we call need, and from which desires are born. These needs recur according to circumstances, often quite new ones present themselves, and it is in this way that our knowledge and faculties develop.
Action | Circumstances | Knowledge | Lethargy | Nature | Need | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Present |
Some men think that the gratification of curiosity is the end of knowledge; some the love of fame; some the pleasure of dispute; some the necessity of supporting themselves by their knowledge; but the real use of all knowledge is this, that we should dedicate that reason which was given us by God to the use and advantage of man.
Curiosity | Dispute | Fame | God | Knowledge | Love | Man | Men | Necessity | Pleasure | Reason | God | Think |