This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, utility, or the Great Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness... Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.
Creed | Ends | Freedom | Pain | Pleasure | Right | Wrong | Happiness |
Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes some places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.
Attention | Faith | Fear | Man | Nations | Pleasure | Praise | Present | Rest | Sacrifice | Spirit | Superstition |
Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.
Care | Gloom | Human nature | Joy | Laughter | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | Pleasure | Receive | Soul | Weakness | Wise |
The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life's joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death. The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure - fearlessness and achievement.
Achievement | Adventure | Conquest | Courage | Death | Experience | Fear | Joy | Life | Life |
He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant’s pleasure to the measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.
Debt | Future | Grave | Heart | Love | Pleasure | Sorrow | Spirit | Unkindness | Will | Companionship |
The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation – initiation – return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth. A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from his mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Adventure | Day | Hero | Man | Power | Rites | Wonder | World |
Duc de Lévis, fully Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis
Boredom is a sickness the cure for which is work; pleasure is only a palliative.
Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Humanity is the peculiar characteristic of great minds; little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the exact pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
Laura Schlesinger, fully Laura Catherine Schlessinger, aka Dr. Laura
As satisfying as pleasure is, it is also transitory and superficial. Pleasure is an event. In contrast, happiness is a process. Pleasure is material. Happiness is spiritual. Pleasure is self-involved. Happiness involves others.
Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek
Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They are a different breed of dogs.
Life is growth - a challenge of environment. If we cannot meet our everyday surroundings with equanimity and pleasure and grow each day in some useful direction, then this splendid balance of cosmic forces which we call life is on the road toward misfortune, misery and destruction. Therefore, health is the most precious of all things.
Balance | Challenge | Day | Equanimity | Growth | Health | Life | Life | Misfortune | Pleasure |
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Joy | Pleasure | Understanding |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
The best orator is the one who address instructs, delights, and moves the minds of the hearers. The orator is obliged to instruct, while pleasure is gratuity granted to the audience. But to stir the emotions is indispensable.
Emotions | Indispensable | Pleasure |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
It is not virtue, but a deceptive copy and imitation of virtue, when we are led to the performance of duty by pleasure as its recompense.
Duty | Imitation | Pleasure | Recompense | Virtue | Virtue |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Is not this steadfastness to mark, to make, the character of our lives? Is it not God’s will that we should press steadily on to our goal in obedience to Him, in channels of His choosing, whether in sunshine or shadow, in the cheer of spring or in the chill of winter, neither detained by pleasure nor deterred by pain?
Twelve Things to Remember: The value of time. The success of perseverance. The pleasure of working. The dignity of simplicity. The worth of character. The power of kindness. The influence of example. The obligation of duty. The wisdom of economy. The virtue of patience. The improvement of talent. The joy of originating.
Character | Dignity | Duty | Example | Improvement | Influence | Joy | Kindness | Obligation | Patience | Perseverance | Pleasure | Power | Simplicity | Success | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Value |