This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The best men are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the chance; and made chance the servitor.
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
As accession of wealth is a dangerous predicament for a man. At first he is stunned if the accession be sudden, and is very humble and very grateful. Then he begins to speak a little louder, people think him more sensible, and soon he think himself so.
Take your duty, and be strong in it, as God will make you strong. The harder it is, the stronger in fact you will be. Understand, also, that the great question her is, not what you will get, but what you will become. The greatest wealth you can ever get will be in yourself. Take your burdens and troubles and losses and wrongs, if come they must and will, as your opportunity, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these.
Duty | God | Knowing | Opportunity | Question | Troubles | Wealth | Will | Wisdom | God |
To acquire wealth is difficult, to preserve it more difficult, but to spend it wisely most difficult of all.
It is strictly and philosophically true in Nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent ore the cause of any event; but they signify merely men’s ignorance of the real and immediate cause.
Accident | Cause | Chance | Ignorance | Men | Nature | Reason | Wisdom | Words |
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.
We never seem to know what anything means till we have lost it. The full significance of those words, property, ease, health - the wealth of meaning that lies in the fond epithets, parent, child friend, we never know till they are taken away; till in place of the bright, visible being, comes the awful and desolate shadow where nothing is - where we stretch our hands in vain, ands strain our eyes upon dark and dismal vacuity.
Friend | Health | Meaning | Means | Nothing | Property | Wealth | Wisdom | Words | Child |
The hold which comptrollers of money are able to maintain on productive forces is seen to be more powerful when it is remembered that, although money is supposed to represent the real wealth of the world, there is always much more wealth that there is money, and real wealth is often compelled to wait upon money, thus leading to that most paradoxical situation - a world filled with wealth but suffering want.
The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different - to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.
Body | Chance | Effort | Mind | Opportunity | Spirit | Unique | Wisdom | Child |
The central event of the twentieth century is the overthrow of matter. In technology, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth in the form of physical resources is steadily declining in value and significance. The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things.
Economics | Force | Mind | Nations | Politics | Technology | Wealth | Wisdom | Value |
It is impossible to conceive any contrast more entire and absolute than that which exists between a heart glowing with love to God, and a heart in which the love of money has cashiered all sense of God - His love, His presence, His glory; and which is no sooner relieved from the mockery of a tedious round of religious formalism than it reverts to the sanctuaries where its wealth is invested, with an intenseness of homage surpassing that of the most devout Israelite who ever, from a foreign land, turned his longing eyes toward Jerusalem.
Absolute | Contrast | Glory | God | Heart | Land | Longing | Love of money | Love | Mockery | Money | Sense | Wealth | Wisdom | God |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Happiness is the deferred fulfillment of a prehistoric wish. That is why wealth brings so little happiness; money is not an infantile wish.
Fulfillment | Little | Money | Wealth | Wisdom |
J. Paul Getty, fully Jean Paul Getty
I have no complex about wealth. I have worked hard for my money, producing things people need. I believe that the able industrial leader who creates wealth and employment is more worthy of historical notice than politicians or soldiers.
When I began to examine just how wealth is created, it seemed to me plain that it arises not from taking, but from giving. People get rich by giving rather than by taking, and this seemed to me to be a very important perception, because the reason for the crisis in capitalism today, it seems to me, is not its practical achievements, but rather the perception of its moral character.
Capitalism | Character | Giving | Important | People | Perception | Reason | Wealth | Wisdom | Crisis |
The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time or money, but make the best use of both Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; and with them, everything.
Frugality | Industry | Money | Nothing | Time | Waste | Wealth | Will | Wisdom | Words |
Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare
Poverty breeds wealth; and wealth in its turn breeds poverty. The earth, to form the mould, is taken out of the ditch; and whatever may be the height of the one will be the depth of the other.
Some people speak as if hypocrites were confined to religion; but they are everywhere; people pretending to wealth when they have not a sixpence, assuming knowledge of which they are ignorant; shamming a culture they are far removed from adopting opinions they don't hold.