This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
But say, my lord, it were not regist'red, methinks the truth should live from age to age, as 'twere retailed to all posterity, Even to the general all-ending day. King Richard III, Act iii, Scene 1
Despair | Intelligence | Soul | Will |
Can’t help it? Nonsense! What we are is up to us. Our bodies are like gardens and our willpower is like the gardener. Depending on what we plant—weeds or lettuce, or one kind of herb rather than a variety, the garden will either be barren and useless, or rich and productive. If we didn’t have rational minds to counterbalance our emotions and desires, our bodily urges would take over. We’d end up in ridiculous situations. Thankfully, we have reason to cool our raging lusts. In my opinion, what you call love is just an offshoot of lust. Othello, Act I, Scene 3
Better | Care | Duty | Fear | Flattery | Little | Lord | Man | Men | Mind | Time | Will | Words | Following |
Be just and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy God's, and truth's. Henry VIII,
Fear |
Blind is his love and best befits the dark. Romeo and Juliet, Act ii, Scene 1
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: by that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, the image of his maker, hope to win by it? Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, to silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy god's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, o cromwell, thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king; and,-prithee, lead me in: there take an inventory of all I have, to the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, and my integrity to heaven, is all i dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies. Henry VIII, Act iii, Scene 2
Fear on guilt attends, and deeds of darkness; the virtuous breast ne'er knows it.
Despair |
Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it . . .
I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not. If I could, be... a great athlete and make a million a year, be a wit, a born -- vivant and a lady killer, as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist ... and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint s; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably, at the outset of life. Be alike possible for a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more of less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully and pick out on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real. Its failure are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs carrying shame and gladness with them.
Reprehension is a kind of middle thing betwixt admonition and correction: it is sharpe admonition, but a milde correction. It is rather to be used because it may be a meanes to prevent strokes and blowes, especially in ingenuous and good natured children. [Blows are] the last remedy which a parent can use: a remedy which may doe good when nothing else can.
Eternal | Fear | Good | Intention | Man | Salvation | Soul | Suffering | Will | Truths |
I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!"
Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool's coat thither.
I do not see how it is possible that creatures in such different positions and with such different powers as human individuals are should have exactly the same functions nor should we be expected to work out identical solutions. Each, from his peculiar angle of observation, takes in a certain sphere of fact and trouble, which each must deal with in a unique manner.