This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness." - Alphonse Karr, fully Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
"Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur. The vulgar, far from hiding their will, blab their wishes. A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire." - Johann Kaspar Lavater
"The bravery founded on hope of recompense, fear of punishment, experience of success, on rage, or on ignorance of danger, is but common bravery, and does not deserve the name. True bravery proposes a just end; measures the dangers, and meets the result with calmness and unyielding decision." - François de La Noüe
"Power is so characteristically calm that calmness in itself has the aspect of power, and forbearance implies strength. The orator who is known to have at his command all the weapons of invective is most formidable when most courteous." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture." - A. H. R. Fairchild, fully Arthur Henry Rolph Fairchild
"Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked." - Patañjali NULL
"Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy; calmness is a great advantage." - George Herbert
"Be calm in argument; for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy. Why should I feel another man’s mistakes more than his sicknesses or poverty? In love I should: but anger is not love, nor wisdom either; therefore gently move. Calmness is great advantage; he that lets another chafe may warm him at his fire, mark all his wand’rings and enjoy his frets, as cunning fencers suffer heat to tire." - George Herbert
"Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience and of an extraordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought." - James Allen
"Power can do by gentleness that which violence fails to accomplish; and calmness best enforces the imperial mandate." - Claudian, latin Claudius Claudianus NULL
"Power can do by gentleness that which violence fails to accomplish; and calmness best enforces the imperial mandate." - Claudian, latin Claudius Claudianus NULL
"Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis." - William George Jordan
"Accustom yourself to the unreasonableness and injustice. Abide in peace in the presence of God, who sees all these evils more clearly than you do, and who permits them. Be content with doing with calmness the little which depends upon yourself, and let all else be to you as if it were not." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
"The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. " - James Allen
"Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power." - James Allen
"No better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; no true beauty without the signature of these graces in the very countenance." - John Ray or Wray
" Genius is allied to a warm and inflammable constitution, delicacy of taste to calmness and sedateness. Hence it is common to find genius in one who is a prey to every passion; but seldom delicacy of taste. Upon a man possessed of this blessing, the moral duties, no less than the fine arts, make a deep impression, and counterbalance every irregular desire; at the same time, a temper calm and sedate is not easily moved, even by a strong temptation." -
"Aum is the most sacred symbol that can be used to know God. The vibration of Aum contains all the concepts of Him and all His manifestations. No other mantra or symbol gives greater calmness and divine attunement of the mind to God. Chanting this sacred Name leads to perception of the Infinite." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
"I cannot here avoid giving my most decided sufferage in favour of the moral qualities of maniacs. I have no where met, excepting in romances, with fonder husbands, more affectionate parents, more impassioned ... than in the lunatic asylum, during their intervals of calmness and reason." - Philippe Pinel
"There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy." - Ralph Blum
"Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-reliant and self-controlled. Calmness is absolute confidence and conscious power, ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis." - Richard and Greta Smolowe
"There are often two characters of a man--that which is believed in by people in general, and that which he enjoys among his associates. It is supposed, but vainly, that the latter is always a more accurate approximation to the truth, whereas in reality it is often a part which he performs to admiration: while the former is the result of certain minute traits, certain inflexions of voice and countenance, which cannot be discussed, but are felt as it were instinctively by his domestics and by the outer world. The impressions arising from these slight circumstances he is able to efface from the minds of his constant companions, or from habit they have ceased to observe them." - Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps
"We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come." - Thich Nhất Hanh
"Oh, give us the man who sings at his work." - Thomas Carlyle
"As there is always more misery at the lower end than humanity at the top, everything was given away before it was received, like water on parched soil." - Victor Hugo
"In 1954, Pope Pius XI, of all people, sent some Vatican delegates on a trip to Libya with these written instructions: Do NOT think that you are going among Infidels. Muslims attain salvation, too. The ways of Providence are infinite." - Elizabeth Gilbert