This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
All children talk with integrity up to about the age of five, when they fall victim to the influences of the adult world and mass entertainment. It is then that they begin, all unconsciously, to become plausible actors. The product of this process is known as maturity, or you and me.
Age | Children | Entertainment | Integrity | Wisdom | World | Victim |
I develop the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any other that give the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so: It appear to me or should not think it, so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so, or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit I believe has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinion and persuade men into measures that I have been, time to time, engaged in promoting.
Gersonides, abbreviation of first letters as RalBaG from Levi ben Gerson NULL
By means of rational thought we have reached the opinion that God knows in advance only the possibilities open to a man in his freedom, not the particular decisions he will make.. It is the opinion of our religion that God never changes... and yet we find in the words of the prophets that God does repent over some things... It is impossible to solve this contradiction if we adopt the view that God knows particular things as particulars.
Contradiction | Freedom | God | Man | Means | Opinion | Religion | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Words | God | Thought |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
A statesman should follow public opinion as a coachman follows his horses; having firm hold on the reins, and guiding them.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the leveling influence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practices so many petty deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.
Character | Distinguish | Existence | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Opinion | Popularity | Wisdom |
The nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to say, we understand nothing of what He is, but only that He is; and therefore the attributes we give Him are not to tell one another what He is, nor to signify our opinion of His nature, but our desire to honor Him with such names as we conceive most honorable amongst ourselves.
Desire | God | Honor | Nature | Nothing | Opinion | Wisdom | God | Understand |
He who has no opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others is a slave.
The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.
Discipline | Habit | Opinion | Will | Wisdom |
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton
A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. I do not know which makes man more conservative - to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
History | Man | Mind | Nothing | Opinion | Past | Present | Study | Wisdom |
D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence
Love is a thing to be learned. It is a difficult, complex maintenance of individual integrity throughout the incalculable processes of inter-human polarity.
Individual | Integrity | Love | Wisdom |
It is an established opinion among some men that there are in the understanding certain innate principles, some primary notions, stamped, as it were, upon the mind of man which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only show how many men obtain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any such innate impressions... Let us suppose the mind to be a blank tablet; how comes it to be furnished? To this answer in one word, from experience.
Experience | Knowledge | Man | Men | Mind | Opinion | Principles | Soul | Understanding | Wisdom | World |
It is the man who does not want to express his opinion whose opinion I want.
Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
Fly no opinion because it is new, but strictly search, and after careful view, reject it if false, embrace it if 'tis true.
Lucan, full name Marcus Annaeus Lucanus NULL
As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ.
Earth | Integrity | Self | Self-interest | Wisdom |