This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Mary Warnock, fully Helen Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock
Teachers have a huge responsibility for developing the language of their pupils, both spoken and written. I do not believe that teacher-training puts enough emphasis on this, nor on the connection between linguistic poverty and behaviour. Teachers have to tackle both together, and must be ready themselves to articulate the limits they will impose on rudeness, violence and disregard for the feeling and interests of others. If teachers are not explicitly to introduce, by precept and example, the basic rules of civilised, morally good behaviour, then they should quickly leave the profession.
Enough | Good | Language | Poverty | Precept | Responsibility | Will |
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
"Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.
Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL
Rabbi Judah the Prince said: “Which is the proper course that a man should choose for himself? That which is an honor to him and elicits honor from his fellow men. Be as scrupulous about a light precept as of a weighty one, for you do not know the reward allotted for each precept. Balance the loss incurred by the fulfillment of a precept against the gain and the accruing from a transgression against the loss it involves. Reflect on three things and you will never come to sin: Know what is above you --a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and all your deeds recorded in a book.”
Balance | Deeds | Fulfillment | Honor | Light | Man | Precept | Reward | Will | Deeds | Loss |
Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL
It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.
He who refuses to teach a precept to his pupil is guilty of theft, just as one who steals from the inheritance of his father,
Inheritance | Precept | Teach | Guilty |
They who perform one precept in this world will find it recorded for their benefit in the world to come; as it is written, 'Thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of the Lord will gather thee in.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
Precept |
It is not as though Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law was a precept from which splendid fiction could not be drawn; it is rather that what these small-time rebels choose to do is so trivial, so cheap, and in the end, so dreary.
Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan
We need you, we need your youth, your strength, and your idealism, to help us make right what is wrong.
Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance.
Good | Precept | Regard | Toleration |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. - A man with a good coat on his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. - You may analyze this and say, what is there in it? - But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.
Precept |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
The conceptions I have summarized here I first put forward only tentatively, but in the course of time they have won such a hold over me that I can no longer think in any other way.
Attention | Better | Cause | Change | Civilization | Ethics | Example | Love | Nothing | Possessions | Precept | Religion | Unhappiness | Virtue | Virtue | Obstacle | Think |
If we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent to the observation of justice, and other laws of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be Peace without subjection.
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and on the way to their end, which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their dedication only, endeavor to destroy or subdue one another.
Those monks who went to the Tang to study before spent much time in that country and all were without mention of this, and now you write stating that in Dali 4 (769) they initiated a MahÄyÄna high seat where the bodhisattva MañjuÅ›rÄ« is placed in all temple dining halls across the land. From then until Zhenyuan 22 (806)3, exactly thirty-eight years have passed. It corresponds to Enryaku 25 (806) in the country of Great Japan. As they say, 'Looking at outward appearances unaware of their contents.'
All through the centuries, scholars and scientists have been imprisoned, tortured and burned alive for some discovery which seemed to conflict with a petty text of Scripture. Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive and exalted lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.
Marriage | Men | Precept | Old Testament | Old |