This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Acquire knowledge, it enables its professor to distinguish right from wrong; it lights the way to heaven. It is our friend in the desert, our company in solitude and companion when friendless. It guides us to happiness, it sustains us in misery, it is an ornament amongst friends and an armor against enemies.
Distinguish | Friend | Right | Solitude | Friends |
Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal
Holiness is of a twofold nature; it begins as a quality of the service rendered to God, but it ends as a reward for such service. It is at first a type of spiritual effort, and then a kind of spiritual gift.
Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
It is the lot of man to share in the deeper aspirations of the universe around him and to share his own destiny as well as that of the universe, now by adjusting himself to its forces, now by putting the whole of his energy to his own ends and purposes. And in this process of progressive change God becomes a co-worker with him, provided man takes the initiative: Verily God will not change the condition of men, till they change what is in themselves. If he does not take the initiative, if he does not evolve the inner richness of his being, if he ceases to feel the inner push of advancing life, then the spirit within him hardens into stone and he is reduced to the level of dead matter.
Change | Destiny | Ends | Energy | God | Man | Spirit | Universe | Will | God |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
My dominion ends where that of conscience begins.
Conscience | Ends |
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I
It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.
Every company has room for the man who has a definite plan of action which is to the advantage of that company.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
Anyone who relies too heavily on reason to achieve happiness, who analyses it, who, so to speak, quibbles over his enjoyment and can accept only refined pleasures, ends up not having any at all. He's like a man who wants to get rid of all the lumps in his mattress and eventually ends up sleeping on bare boards.
Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas
There are moments when society people seem ready to be assessed at their true value. I've often noticed that they appreciate those who show little regard for them, which seems a sort of invitation to express your contempt openly, providing you do it sincerely, without affectation of ignorance, and from the heart.
Affectation | Contempt | Little | People | Regard | Society | Society |
Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol
Mind you learn your lessons, Pavlusha, don't play the fool and don't get into scrapes, but spare no pain to please your teachers and superiors. So long as you please your superiors it does not matter if you are no good at learning and God has not endowed you with talent: you will still go far and outstrip the others. Do not keep company with your schoolfellows; they will teach you no good; but if you must, then choose those that are richer so that when the occasion arises they may be useful to you. Do not open your purse too freely to others, but rather conduct yourself in such a manner that others will open their freely to you, and, most important, husband your money and save every copeck: of all things in the world, money is the most dependable. A playmate or friend will lead you a merry dance and will be the first to betray you in times of trouble, but a copeck will never betray you, whatever trouble you might be in. With that copeck you can do everything and achieve everything in this world.
Conduct | Friend | God | Good | Husband | Learning | Money | Pain | Play | Teach | Will | Trouble | God | Learn |
Those who knew that the judgements of many centuries had reinforced the opinion that the Earth is placed motionless in the middle of heaven, as though at its centre, if I on the contrary asserted that the Earth moves, I hesitated for a long time whether to bring my treatise, written to demonstrate its motion, into the light of day, or whether it would not be better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and certain others, who used to pass on the mysteries of their philosophy merely to their relatives and friends, not in writing but by personal contact, as the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus bears witness. And indeed they seem to me to have done so, not as some think from a certain jealousy of communicating their doctrines, but so that their greatest splendours, discovered by the devoted research of great men, should not be exposed to the contempt of those who either find it irksome to waste effort on anything learned, unless it is profitable, or if they are stirred by the exhortations and examples of others to a high-minded enthusiasm for philosophy, are nevertheless so dull-witted that among philosophers they are like drones among bees.
Better | Contempt | Earth | Effort | Enthusiasm | Example | Jealousy | Light | Opinion | Philosophy | Research | Time | Waste | Writing | Think |
Otto Rank, born Otto Rosenfeld
The struggle of the artist against the art-ideology, against the creative impulse and even against his own work also shows itself in his attitude towards success and fame; these two phenomena are but an extension, socially, of the process which began subjectively with the vocation and creation of the personal ego to be an artist. In this entire creative process, which begins with self-nomination as artist and ends in the fame of posterity, two fundamental tendencies — one might almost say, two personalities of the individual — are in continual conflict throughout: one wants to eternalize itself in artistic creation, the other in ordinary life — in brief, immortal man vs. the immortal soul of man.
Ego | Ends | Fame | Impulse | Individual | Life | Life | Man | Phenomena | Soul | Struggle | Success | Wants | Work |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Environment is stronger than will power. If you want to be spiritual, seek good company and don’t mix with those whose bad habits may wrongly influence you. Be always with people who inspire you; surround yourself with people who lift you up.
Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, sometimes referred to as Pachacuti
Lost in memories of urban decay, we are leaving behind our gluttonous ways and singing songs into the eternal sky even as we wander the world alone, carrying flags of fathers who never loved us billowing over our shoulders, like new angels soaring into heaven wings thrown earthward feeling the company of all of us- pioneers of solitude- even as we wander the world alone.
When you keep company with an eminent master, his qualities will automatically influence you.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Do not keep company with people unless you are prepared to give them your full attention.
People |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The world ends for us when we are free from desires. I enjoy everything, but I have no desire for anything, so there is never any pain or disappointment from unfulfillment. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I enjoy myself.
Genius sits in a glass house -- but in an unbreakable one --conceiving ideas. After giving birth, it falls into madness. Stretches out its hand through the window toward the first person happening by. The demon's claw rips, the iron fist grips. Before, you were a model, mocks the ironic voice between serrated teeth, for me, you are raw material to work on. I throw you against the glass wall, so that you remain stuck there, projected and stuck. (Then come the lovers of art and contemplate the bleeding work from outside. Then come the photographers. New art, it says in the newspaper the following day. The learned journals give it a name that ends in ism.)