This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever.
Character | Consciousness | Duty | Evil | Sense |
Pride is a great urge to action; but remember, the pride must be on the part of the buyer. On the part of the seller, it is vanity.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Whatever satisfies souls is true; prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls, itself only finally satisfies the soul, the soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.
George Washington Barrow or Barrows
An hour's industry will do more to produce cheerfulness, suppress evil humors, and retrieve one's affairs, that a month's moaning. It sweetens enjoyment, and seasons our attainments with a delightful relish.
Cheerfulness | Enjoyment | Evil | Industry | Will | Wisdom |
Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason, and Energy, Love and hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.
Energy | Evil | Existence | Good | Hate | Heaven | Hell | Love | Reason | Wisdom |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, and put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air on grand occasions. It is a garment all stiff brocade outside, and all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin. Even kings do not wear the dalmaticum except at a coronation.
Those who, without knowing us, think or speak evil of us, do no harm; it is not us they attack, but the phantom of their own imagination.
The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey.
Evil | Fraud | Little | Lust | Man | Perfidy | Rage | War | Wisdom |
Laughter is an integral part of life, one that we could ill afford to lose. If I were asked what single quality every human being needs more than any other, I would answer, the ability to laugh at himself. When we see our own grotesqueries, how droll our ambitions are, how comical we are in almost all respects, we automatically become more sane, less self-centered, more humble, more wholesome. To laugh at ourselves we have to stand outside ourselves - and that is an immense benefit. Our puffed-up pride and touchy self-importance vanish; a clean and sweet humility begins to take possession of us. We are on the way to growing a soul.
Ability | Humility | Laughter | Life | Life | Pride | Self | Soul | Wisdom |
God hides some ideal in every human soul. At some time in our life we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do some good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hidden impulse to do our best.
Excellence | God | Good | Impulse | Life | Life | Longing | Soul | Time | Wisdom | Excellence |
(Mathematical Division of Things, is never made in Minima; but Things may be Physically divided into their least parts; as when Concrete Matter is so far divided that it departs into Physical Monades, as it was in the first State of its Materiality...) Moreover the consideration of this Infinite Divisibility of every thing, into parts always less, is no unnecessary or unprofitable Theory, but a thing of great moment; viz. that thereby may be understood the Reasons and Causes of Things; and how all Creatures from the highest to the lowest are inseparably united with one another, by means of Subtiler Parts interceding or coming in between, which are the Emanations of one Creature into another, by which also they act one upon another at the greatest distance; and this is the Foundation of all Sympathy and Antipathy which happens in Creatures: And if these things be well understood of any one, he may easily see into the most secret and hidden Causes of Things, which ignorant Men call occult Qualities.
Consideration | Means | Men | Qualities | Sympathy | Wisdom |
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Broke
Pride, like ambition, is sometimes virtuous and sometimes vicious, according the character in which it is found, and the object to which it is directed. As a principle, it is the parent of almost every virtue and every vice - everything that pleases and displeases in mankind; and as the effects are so very different, nothing is more easy than to discover, even to ourselves, whether the pride that produces them is virtuous or vicious the first object of virtuous pride is rectitude, and the next independence.
Ambition | Character | Mankind | Nothing | Object | Pride | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Parent | Vice |
Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, composed our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride or design in their conversation.
Age | Books | Conversation | Design | Entertainment | Men | Nothing | Pride | Solitude | Wisdom | Youth |