This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Words so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.
Circumstances | Evil | Heart | Life | Life |
Ovid, formally Publius Ovidius Naso NULL
Resist beginnings: it is too late to employ medicine when the evil has grown strong by inveterate habit.
We cannot leave behind us the sins of our past. We must not forget that nothing disappears. Everything is eternal. Everything that has been is still in existence. The whole history of humanity is the “history of crime”... Man must go back, seek for, and destroy the causes of evil however far back they lie. It is only in this idea that the hint of the possibilities of a general evolution can be found. It is only in this idea that the possibility of changing the karma of humanity lies, because changing the karma means changing the past... There will be no possibility of thinking of evolution of humanity, if the possibility did not exist for individually evolving man to go into the past and struggle against the causes of the present evil which lie there.
Crime | Destroy | Eternal | Evil | Evolution | Existence | History | Humanity | Man | Means | Nothing | Past | Present | Struggle | Thinking | Will |
To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he may have the less.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them: they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs.
For ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
Evil | Ignorance | Learning | Misfortune | Training |
No man voluntarily pursues evil, or that which he thinks is evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the great when he may have the less.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
The talkative listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil that attends those who know not how to be silent, is, that they hear nothing.
It will never be possible to get rid of evil altogether, for there must always be something opposite to good.
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
Acceptance is not a state of passivity or inaction. I am not saying you can't change the world, right wrongs, or replace evil with good. Acceptance is, in fact, the first step to successful action. If you don't fully accept a situation precisely the way it is, you will have difficulty changing it. Moreover, if you don't fully accept the situation, you will never really know if the situation should be changed.
Acceptance | Action | Change | Difficulty | Evil | Good | Right | Will | World |
The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Evil | Good | Indifference | Men | Public |
For the man who makes everything that leads to happiness, or near to it, to depend upon himself, and not upon other men, on whose good or evil actions his own doings are compelled to hinge, such a one, I say, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation; this is the man of manly character and of wisdom.
Character | Evil | Good | Man | Men | Moderation | Plan | Wisdom |
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon.
Absence | Business | Evil | Man | Speech | World | Business |