This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Cardinal de Retz, Jean Francois-Paul de Gondil
One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy - which means he often finds the remedy too late.
Character | Fault | Looks | Man | Means | Misfortune | Misfortune |
Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins
Love means giving one’s self to another person fully, not just physically. When two people really love each other, this helps them to stay alive and grow. One must be loved to grow. Love’s such a precious and fragile thing that when it comes we have to hold on tightly. And when it comes, we’re very lucky because for some it never comes at all. If you have love, you’re wealthy in a way that can never be measured.
The thing that must survive you is not just the record of your practice, but the principles that are the basis of your practice.
Character | Practice | Principles |
That charity alone endures which flows from a sense of duty and a hope in God. this is the charity that treads in secret those paths of misery from which all but the lowest of human wretches have fled; this is that charity which no labor can weary, no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust; that toils, that pardons, that suffers; that is seen by no man, and honored by no man, but, like the great laws of Nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks to a future and better world for its reward.
Better | Character | Charity | Duty | Future | God | Hope | Ingratitude | Labor | Looks | Man | Nature | Reward | Sense | Silence | Work | World | God |
The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
Lillian Smith, fully Lillian Eugenia Smith
Freedom is a dreadful thing unless it goes hand in hand with responsibility. Democracy among men is a specter except when the hearts of men are mature.
Character | Democracy | Freedom | Men | Responsibility |
We bury love; forgetfulness grows over it like grass; that is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
Character | Forgetfulness | Love |
Henry Suso, aka Amandus or Saint Henry Suso
All creatures have existed eternally in the divine essence, as in their exemplar. So far as they conform to the divine idea, all beings were, before their creation, one thing with the essence of God. (God creates into time what was and is in eternity.” Eternally, all creatures are God in God... So far as they are in God, they are the same life, the same essence, the same power, the same One, and nothing less.
Character | Eternity | God | Life | Life | Nothing | Power | Time | God |