This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland
The mind grows by what it feeds on.
He only is great at heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career. And he is greatest who does the most of all these things and does them best.
I have found it helpful to keep constantly in mind that there are really two entries to be made for every transaction - one in terms of immediate dollars and cents, the other in terms of goodwill.
Edmund (Louis Antoine Huot) de Goncourt (1822-1896) and Jules (Alfred Huot) de Goncourt
Man is a mind betrayed, not served, by his organs.
The virtuous mind that ever walks attended by a strong siding champion, conscience.
Character | Conscience | Mind |
Richard M. Hare, fully Richard Mervyn Hare
It is, most fundamentally, because moral judgments are universablizable that we can speak of moral thought as rational (to universalize is to give the reason); and their prescriptivity is very intimately connected with our freedom to form our own moral opinions (only those free to think and act need a prescriptive language).
Character | Freedom | Language | Need | Reason | Thought | Think | Thought |
A person who is sincerely humble will be constantly happy. A humble person realizes that nothing is owed him, and therefore feels satisfied with what he has. He does not raise his sights to receive what is above him. He constantly has peace of mind and always feels the joy of life.
Character | Happy | Joy | Life | Life | Mind | Nothing | Peace | Receive | Will |
Joseph Grew, fully Joseph Clark Grew
Moral stimulation is good but moral complacency is the most dangerous habit of mind we can develop, and that danger is serious and ever-present.
Character | Complacency | Danger | Good | Habit | Mind | Present | Danger |
Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla
It is the responsibility of the conscious, rational mind to decide what it accepts, retains, and dwells upon. It’s an immense responsibility.
Character | Mind | Responsibility |
The inlet of a man's mind is what he learns; the outlet is what he accomplishes. If his mind is not fed by a continued supply of new ideas which he puts to work with purpose, and if there is no outlet in action, his mind becomes stagnant. Such a mind is a danger to the individual who owns it and is useless to the community.
Action | Character | Danger | Ideas | Individual | Man | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Work | Danger |
Love is as necessary to human beings as food and shelter; [but] without intelligence... love is impotent and freedom unattainable.
Character | Freedom | Intelligence | Love |
Our perceptions and our understanding are directed, in large measure, by our will. We are aware of, and we think about, the things which, for one reason or another, we want to see and understand. Where there’s a will there is always an intellectual way. The capacities of the human mind are almost indefinitely great.