This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are rather the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the "easy life of the gods" would be a lifeless life." -
"The will to power, as the modern age from Hobbes to Nietzsche understood it, far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one. Power corrupts indeed when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before." -
"A man who truly wants to make the world better should start by improving himself and his attitudes." - Fred de Armond
"Whoever admits that he is too busy to improve his methods has acknowledged himself to be at the end of his rope. And that is always the saddest predicament which anyone can get into." - J. Ogden Armour, fully Jonathan Ogden Armour
"A faithless heart betrays the head unsound." - John Armstrong
"Know then, whatever cheerful and serene supports the mind, supports the body too; hence, the most vital movement mortals feel is hope, the balm and lifeblood of the soul." - John Armstrong
"Virtue and sense are one; and, trust me, still a faithless heart betrays the head unsound." - John Armstrong
"Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, is the best gift of heaven; a happiness that, even above the smiles and frowns of fate, exalts great Nature’s favorites; a wealth that ne’er encumbers, nor can be transferr’d." - John Armstrong
"The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. Let a man lose everything else in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success." - H. W. Arnold
"The regeneration of a sinner is an evidence of power in the highest sphere - moral nature; with the highest prerogative - to change nature; and operating to the highest result - not to create originally, which is great; but to create anew, which is greater." - William Arthur
"Envy is hatred without a cure." - Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, also known as Rabbeinu Behaye
"It is integrity that invests man with immortality, and bestows upon him the privilege of direct communion with God." - Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, also known as Rabbeinu Behaye
"If there is no justice, there is no peace." - Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, also known as Rabbeinu Behaye
"The purpose of this discipline is to bring man into the habit of applying the insight that has come to him as the result of the preceding disciplines. When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one’s mind on the act and the doing of it, not on one’s relation to the act, or its character or value. One should think: there is walking, there is stopping, there is realizing; not, I am walking, I am doing this, it is a good thing, it is disagreeable, I am gaining merit, it is I who am realizing how wonderful it is. Thence come vagrant thoughts, feelings of elation or of failure and unhappiness. Instead of all this, one should simply practice concentration of the mind on the act itself, understanding it to be an expedient means for attaining tranquillity of mind, realization, insight and Wisdom; and one should follow the practice in faith, willingness and gladness. After long practice the bondage of old habits become weakened and disappears, and in its place appear confidence, satisfaction, awareness and tranquillity. What is the Way of Wisdom designed to accomplish? There are three classes of conditions that hinder one from advancing along the path to Enlightenment. First, there are the allurements arising from the senses, from external conditions and from the discriminating mind. Second, there are the internal conditions of the mind, its thoughts, desires and mood. All these the earlier practices (ethical and mortificatory) are designed to eliminate. In the third class of impediments are placed the individual’s instinctive and fundamental (and therefore most insidious and persistent) urges - the will to live and to enjoy, the will to cherish one’s personality, the will to propagate, which give rise to greed and lust, fear and anger, infatuation, pride and egotism. The practice of the Wisdom Paramita is designed to control and eliminate these fundamental and instinctive hindrances." - Aśvaghoṣa NULL
"Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer - into selflessness which links us with all humanity." - Nancy Astor, fully Lady Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor
"A good character when established should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still further good." - Francis Atterbury
"Affliction is a school of virtue: it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning." - Francis Atterbury
"Few consider how much we are indebted to government, because few can represent how wretched mankind would be without it." - Francis Atterbury
"It is impossible to have a lively hope in another life, and yet be deeply immersed in the enjoyments of this." - Francis Atterbury
"My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood." - Lee Atwater, fully Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"It is axiomatic that we should all think of ourselves as being more sensitive than other people because, when we are insensitive in our dealings with others, we cannot be aware of it at the time: conscious insensitivity is a self-contradiction." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"Man desires to be free and he desires to feel important. This places him in a dilemma, for the more he emancipates himself from necessity the less important he feels." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
"All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent." - Berthold Auerbach
"Being alone when one’s belief is firm, is not to be alone." - Berthold Auerbach
"Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also of all progress in individuals and in nations." - Berthold Auerbach
"Garden work consists more in uprooting weeds than in planting seed. This applies also to teaching." - Berthold Auerbach
"Gratitude is a soil on which joy thrives." - Berthold Auerbach
"He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted." - Berthold Auerbach
"Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt." - Berthold Auerbach
"There is no greatness that does not rest on true morality." - Berthold Auerbach
"He that does not respect confidence will never find happiness in his path. The belief in virtue vanishes from his heart; the source of nobler actions becomes extinct in him." - Joseph von Auffenberg
"A cheerful spirit is one of the most valuable gifts ever bestowed upon humanity by a kind Creator. It is the sweetest and the most fragrant flower of the Spirit, that constantly sends out its beauty and fragrance, and blesses everything within its reach. It will sustain the soul in the darkest and most dreary places of this world. It will hold in check the demons of despair, and stifle the power of discouragement and hopelessness. It is the brightest star that ever cast its radiance over the darkened soul, and one that seldom sets in the gloom of morbid fancies and foreboding imaginations." - Arthur Aughey
"A firm faith is the best theology; a good life is the best philosophy, a clear conscience the best law; honesty the best policy, and temperance the best physic." - Arthur Aughey
"As a weak limb grows stronger by exercise, so will your faith be strengthened by the very efforts you make in stretching it out towards things unseen." - Arthur Aughey
"Cheerfulness is the friend and helper of all good graces, and the absence of it is certainly a vice." - Arthur Aughey
"Cheerfulness sharpens the edge and removes the rust from the mind. A joyous heart supplies oil to our inward machinery, and makes the whole of our powers work with ease and efficiency." - Arthur Aughey
"Faith without evidence is, properly, not faith, but prejudice or presumption; faith beyond evidence is superstition, and faith contrary to evidence is either insanity or willful perversity of mind." - Arthur Aughey
"Great things are not accomplished by idle dreams, but by years of patient study." - Arthur Aughey
"Happiness without peace is temporal; peace along with happiness is eternal." - Arthur Aughey
"It is one of the worst of errors to suppose that there is any other path of safety except that of duty." - Arthur Aughey
"Open your heart to sympathy, but close it against despondency. The flower which opens to receive the dew shuts against the rain" - Arthur Aughey
"Sorrow comes soon enough without despondency. It does a man no good to carry around a lightning-rod to attract trouble." - Arthur Aughey
"The ability to find fault is believed, by some people, to be a sure sign of great wisdom, when, in most cases, it only indicates narrowness of mind and ill nature." - Arthur Aughey
"The chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us, and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones are let on long leases." - Arthur Aughey