This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Character | Determination | Education | Genius | Men | Nothing | Persistence | Will | World | Talent |
Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré
The only perfection I know of is a hearty love of god, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Charity is the only virtue which rightly unites us to God and man. Such union is our final aim and end, and all the rest is mere delusion.
Character | Charity | Delusion | God | Love | Man | Perfection | Rest | Virtue | Virtue | God |
Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is made up of meanness and malice. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and the measure of happiness abated. It laments over prosperity, and sickens at the sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit as well as good nature.
Character | Envy | Force | Good nature | Good | Health | Malice | Meanness | Nature | Prosperity | Spirit | Wants | Wishes | Happiness |
Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa
Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.
Allan Chalmers, fully Allan Knight Chalmers
Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. Your name and your good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.
Character | Deeds | Good | Heaven | Kindness | Love | Mercy | Will | Deeds |
A religion giving dark views of God, and infusing superstitious fear of innocent enjoyment, instead of aiding sober habits, will, by making men abject and sad, impair their moral force and prepare them for intemperance as a refuge from depression or despair.
Character | Depression | Despair | Enjoyment | Fear | Force | Giving | God | Intemperance | Men | Religion | Will |
Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz
All beginnings are difficult, but there is nothing that stands in the way when you have a strong will to accomplish. The essential thing is to be sincerely resolved to be successful.
Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz
At times, laziness is the root of taking action. When we feel an urge to give in to a desire, we might hear a whisper telling us that something is not right. Laziness, however, prevents us from fighting that desire and we give in to our bad habit.
Action | Character | Desire | Fighting | Habit | Laziness | Right |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.
Character | Emotions | People | Practice | Will | Understand |
Cyril Connolly, fully Cyril Vernon Connolly
We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking.
Whatever deprives a man of personal individual motive for self-improvement and robust exertion will not make him free, but on the contrary more servile and in the long run less intelligent, industrious and free, for freedom is a matter of character and will power.
Character | Freedom | Improvement | Individual | Man | Power | Self | Self-improvement | Will |