This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
None are too wise to be mistaken, but few are so wisely just as to acknowledge and correct their mistakes, and especially the mistakes of prejudice.
The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of the wise is in their heart.
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise, and their conscience that is wrong.
Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson
It is when we detect our own weaknesses that we come to pity or despise mankind. The human nature from which we then turn away is the human nature we have discovered in the depths of our own being. The evil is so well screened, the secret so universally kept, that in this case each individual is the dupe of all: however severely we may profess to judge other men, at bottom we think them better than ourselves. On this happy illusion much of our social life is grounded.
Better | Character | Despise | Evil | Happy | Human nature | Illusion | Individual | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Nature | Pity | Think |
Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.
A guilty conscience is a hell on earth, and points to one beyond.
Character | Conscience | Earth | Hell | Guilty |
The most generous and merciful in judgment upon the faults of others, are always the most free from faults themselves.
There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart.
Character | Conscience | Heart | Tenderness | Will |