This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thicksighted.
Ambition | Character | Imagination | Life | Life | Man | Soul | Space | Ambition |
A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only himself can damage that. His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity.
Character | Eternity | God | Man | Men | Reputation | Time | God |
Justice is a name for certain moral requirements, which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of social utility, and are therefore of more paramount obligation, than any others; though particular cases may occur in which some other social duty is so important, as to overrule any one of the general maxims of justice. Thus, to save a life, it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap, and compel to officiate, the only qualified medical practitioner. In such cases, as we do not call anything justice which is not a virtue, we usually say, not that justice must give way to some other moral principle, but that what is just in ordinary case is, by reason of that other principle, not just in the particular case. By this useful accommodation of language, the character of indefeasibility attributed to justice is kept up, and we are saved from the necessity of maintaining that there can be laudable injustice.
Character | Duty | Force | Important | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Language | Life | Life | Maxims | Necessity | Obligation | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |
It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it, and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to.
Better | Character | Contemplation | Feelings | Individual | Life | Life | Object | Race | Rights | Uniformity | Worth |
Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.
In the long-run, the best proof of character is good actions.
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
Because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. that so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
Character | Courage | Danger | Eccentricity | Genius | Opinion | Order | People | Society | Strength | Time | Tyranny | Society | Danger |
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
Character | Reputation | Think |
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
Character | Courage | Danger | Eccentricity | Genius | Society | Strength | Time | Society | Danger |
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.
Character | Courage | Danger | Eccentricity | Genius | Society | Strength | Time | Society | Danger |
Politeness is a kind of anesthetic which envelops the asperities of our character so that other people be not wounded by them. We should never be without it, even when we contend with the rude.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.
Character | Firmness | Genius | Purpose | Purpose | Success |
A virtue is an admirable character trait or disposition to habitually act in a manner that benefits ourselves and others. The actions of virtuous people stem from a respect and concern for the well-being of themselves and others.
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your word.
We do not know a nation until we know its pleasures of life, just as we do not know a man until we know how he spends his leisure. It is when a man ceases to do the things he has to do, and does the things he likes to do, that the character is revealed. It is when the repressions of society and business are gone and when the goads of money and fame and ambition are lifted, and man's spirit wanders where it listeth, that we see the inner man, his real self.
Ambition | Business | Character | Fame | Leisure | Life | Life | Man | Money | Self | Society | Spirit | Ambition | Society | Business |