This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of glory. But it is also the great mark of his excellence; for whatever possessions he may have on earth, whatever health and essential comfort, he is not satisfied if he has not the esteem of men.
Baseness | Comfort | Earth | Esteem | Excellence | Glory | Health | Man | Men | Possessions |
Custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason or justice. Custom without this would pass for tyranny; but the sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire. They are principles natural to man.
Custom | Desire | Justice | Man | People | Principles | Reason | Tyranny | Will | Think |
If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
The mind has its arrangement; it proceeds from principles to demonstrations. The heart has a different mode of proceeding.
Heart | Mind | Principles |
It is certain that the soul is either mortal or immortal. The decision of this question must make a total difference in the principles of morals. Yet philosophers have arranged their moral system entirely independent of this. What an extraordinary blindness!
As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.
Good | Harmony | Heart | Impulse | Man | Phenomena | Principles |
There are two things that declare, as with a voice from heaven, that he that fills that eternal throne must be on side of virtue, and that which he befriends must finally prosper and prevail. The first is that the bad are never completely happy and at ease, although possessed of everything that this world can bestow; and that the good are never completely miserable, although deprived of everything that this world can take away. The second is that we are so framed and constituted that the most vicious cannot but pay a secret though unwilling homage to virtue, inasmuch as the worst men cannot bring themselves thoroughly to esteem a bad man, although he may be their dearest friend, nor can they thoroughly despise a good man, although he may be their bitterest enemy.
Despise | Enemy | Esteem | Eternal | Friend | Good | Happy | Heaven | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue | World |
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
Men | Principles | War |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Music illustrates the primordial forces of nature, while li reflects the products of creation. Heaven represents the principle of eternal motion, while Earth represents the principle of remaining still, and these two principles of motion and rest permeate life between Heaven and Earth.
Earth | Eternal | Heaven | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Principles | Rest |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
A man can enlarge his principles; his principles do not enlarge a man.
Man | Principles |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
He who merely knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.
Principles | Right |
Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL
It is common to esteem most what is most unknown.
Esteem |
Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
People | Principles |
The great difference between the real statesman and the pretender is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts on expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for immortality.
Day | Future | Immortality | Present | Principles |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR
The fate of America cannot depend on any one man. The greatness of American is grounded in principles and not on any single personality.
Fate | Greatness | Man | Personality | Principles | Fate |
Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved. As a rule the majority are wrong, the minority is usually right.
Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
What experience and history teach is this - that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
Experience | History | Principles | Teach |