This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
Never let your inferiors do you a favor. It will be extremely costly.
Louis-Mathieu Molé, aka Count Molé , Comte Molé or Mathieu Molé
If we have need of a strong will in order to do good, it is more necessary still for us in order not to do evil; from which it often results that the most modest life is that where the force of will is most exercised.
Character | Evil | Force | Good | Life | Life | Need | Order | Will |
They that deserve nothing should be content with anything... If we cannot bring our condition to our mind, we must bring our mind to our condition; if a man is not content in the state he is in, he will not be content in the state he would be in.
C. Wright Mills, fully Charles Wright Mills
If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you say will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift of the coming hell.
Acceptance | Character | Controversy | Hell | Will | Wisdom |
Dreamers and doers - the world, generally divides men into those two general classifications, but the world is often wrong. There are men who win the admiration and respect of their fellowmen. They are the men worth while. Dreaming is just another name for thinking, planning, devising - another way of saying that a man exercises his soul. A steadfast soul, holding steadily to a dream ideal, plus a sturdy will determined to succeed in any venture, can make any dream come true. Use your mind and your will. They work together for you beautifully if you'll only give them a chance.
Admiration | Chance | Character | Man | Men | Mind | Respect | Soul | Thinking | Will | Work | World | Worth | Wrong | Respect |
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
He will succeed; for he believes all he says.
Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL
The envious will die, but envy never.
Some people ask why the righteous suffer in this world. To a great extent the question is based on a misconception. Often, the criteria people use to judge whether another person is living a good life or not is by his financial standard of living... A truly righteous person by definition lives a happy life. Such a person has internalized the awareness that all the occurrences in his life are for the good, and he has satisfaction from his life. His life has meaning and purpose. His whole being is focused on spiritual elevation. He deeply feels that the good life is to fulfill the will of the Almighty and hence he feels great pleasure in the good deeds that he performs.
Awareness | Character | Deeds | Good | Happy | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Pleasure | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Will | World | Deeds | Awareness |
He who attempts to act and do things for others and for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give to others. He will communicate to them only the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, and his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas.
Capacity | Character | Ego | Ends | Freedom | Ideas | Integrity | Love | Means | Self | Understanding | Will | World |
If you face squarely into the sunlight, and gaze squarely toward the future, you will find that both your shadow and your failures have fallen behind you.
Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL
Things only have the value that we give them. [Things are only worth what you make them worth.]
Our conscience is a fire within us, and our sins as the fuel; instead of warming, it will scorch us, unless the fuel be removed, or the heat of it allayed by penitential tears.
Character | Conscience | Tears | Will |
The foundations of the world will be shaky until the moral props are restored.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because of his fear[s].