This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The astonishing thing about him [man] is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals, far removed from his material surroundings and animal activities, and in no way suggested by them, yet for which, such is his affection, he is willing to endure toils and privations, to sacrifice pleasures, to disdain griefs and frustrations. The inner truth is that every man is himself a creator, by birth and nature, an artist, an architect and fashioner of worlds." - W. Macneile Dixon, fully William Macneile Dixon
"There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. We try all the ways that can lead us to it. When reason fails us, we use experience.. which is a weaker and less dignified means. But truth is so great a thing that we must not disdain any medium that will lead us to it." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"Let us not disdain glory too much - nothing is finer except virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite both in this life." - François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand
"To disdain to-day is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood." - Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
"‘Tis great, ‘tis manly, to disdain disguise; it shows our spirit, or it proves our strength." - Edward Young
"The highest good is like that of the water. The goodness of water is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures, yet itself does not scramble, but is content with the places that all men disdain." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"Keep forever in view the momentous value of life; aim at its worthiest use - its sublimest end; spurn, with disdain, those foolish trifles and frivolous vanities, who so often consume life, as the locusts did Egypt; and devote yourself, with the ardor of a passion, to attain the most divine improvements of the human soul." - John Foster, fully John Watson Foster
"[On children] Train them to virtue; habituate them to industry, activity, and spirit. Make them consider every vice as shameful and unmanly. Fire them with ambition to be useful. Make them disdain to be destitute of any useful knowledge. Fix their ambition upon great and solid objects, and their contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones." - John Quincy Adams
"All real joy and power of progress... depend on finding something to reverence, and all the baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain." - John Ruskin
"All real joy and power of progress in humanity depend on finding something to reverence, and all the baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain." - John Ruskin
"In prosperity let us most carefully avoid pride, disdain, and arrogance." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man’s estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope too like despair For prudence to smother, I can give not what men call love: But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And heaven rejects not: The desire of the moth for the star, The devotion of something afar From the sphere of our sorrow? " - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Yet when it rules in the name of the Constitution, whether it rules truly or not, the Court is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy. The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
"They said to him, "And what will you do if the Romans unite with the Byzantines? For behold, yesterday there came legates of Rome and tomorrow on Sunday they will take communion with the patriarch; it will become evident to all that it was you who turned the Romans away. Doubtless with you removed, there will then be an easy union." And he said to them, "Those who are coming cannot in any way prejudice the see of Rome, even if they should take communion because they have not brought a letter to the patriarch. And I am not at all convinced that the Romans will unite with them unless they confess that our Lord and God by nature both wills and works our salvation according to each of the natures from which he is, in which he is, as well as which he is." And they said, "And if the Romans should come to terms with them at this time, what will you do?" He replied, "The Holy Spirit, according to the Apostle, condemns even angels who sanction anything against what has been preached"" - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
"Do not hate the sinner. We are, indeed, all laden with guilt. If for the sake of God you are moved to oppose him, weep over him. Why do you hate him? Hate his sins and pray for him." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
"One is always of his age and especially he who least appears so" - Charles Augustin Sainte-Veuve
"In the case of a ruler or leader it is a fault not to attain to the highest possible excellence, and always make progress in goodness, if indeed he is, by his high degree of virtue, to draw his people to an ordinary degree, not by the force of authority, but by the influence of persuasion. For what is involuntary apart from its being the result of oppression, is neither meritorious nor durable. For what is forced, like a plant violently drawn aside by our hands, when set free, returns to what it was before, but that which is the result of choice is both most legitimate and enduring." - Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian
"The babbling sounds that mimic echo plays, The fairy shade, and its eternal maze? Nature and Art in all their charms combin'd, And all Elysium to one view confin'd! " - Thomas Tickell
"A little scorn is alluring." - William Congreve
"I shall attempt to prove two things: first, that the actions and dispositions of mankind are the offspring of circumstances and events, and not of any original determination that they bring into the world; and, secondly, that the great stream of our voluntary actions essentially depends, not upon the direct and immediate impulses of sense, but upon the decisions of the understanding." - William Godwin
"There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature, but, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"Eternity stands always fronting God; a stern colossal image, with blind eyes, and grand dim lips, that murmur evermore, "God - God - God!"" - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time." - Itay Talgam