This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of learning.
Character | Discretion | Learning | Worth |
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.
Character | Cunning | Discretion | Good | Instinct | Life | Life | Looks | Men | Perfection | Reason | Sense | Understanding |
One can pass on responsibility, but not the discretion that goes with it.
Knowledge is the treasure of the mind, but discretion is the key to it, without which it is useless. The practical part of wisdom is the best.
Character | Discretion | Knowledge | Mind | Wisdom |
He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances.
Character | Circumstances | Happy | Temper |
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.
Character | Control | Discretion | Education | Enough | People | Safe | Society | Society | Think |
A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
A cheerful temper spreads like the dawn, and all vapors disperse before it. Even the tear dries on the cheek, and the sigh sinks away half-breathed when the eye of benignity beams upon the unhappy.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Character | Moderation | Temper | Virtue | Virtue | Moderation |
A sound discretion is not so much indicted by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.
Discretion | Mistake | Sound | Wisdom |
Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic end.
Ability | Discretion | Wisdom |
Too many have no idea of the subjection of their temper to the influence of religion, and yet what is changed, if the temper is not? If a man is as passionate, malicious, resentful, sullen, moody, or morose after his conversion as before it, what is he converted from or to?
As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness.
Cheerfulness | Melancholy | Temper | Wisdom | Wise |
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Good | Moderation | Temper | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Moderation |