This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live." - Plato NULL
"Education and study, and the favors of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes." - Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
"The study of history is in the truest sense an education and a training for political life... The most instructive, or rather the only, method of learning to bear with dignity the vicissitudes of fortune is to recall the catastrophes of others." - Polybius NULL
"Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Is not prayer also a study of truth – a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought, shall at the same time kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The end of study should be to direct the mind towards the enunciation of sound and correct judgments on all matters that come before it." - René Descartes
"Once demystified, the dismal science (of economics) is nothing less than the study of power." - Richard Barnet, fully Richard Jackson Barnet
"According to one study, the average four-year-old laughs 300 times a day, while the average adult laughs about 15 times a day." - Robin Sharma
"Humility leads to the highest distinction, because it leads to self-improvement. Study your own characters; endeavor to learn and to supply your own deficiencies; never assume to yourselves qualities which you do not possess; combine all this with energy and activity, and you cannot predicate of yourselves, nor can others predicate of you, at what point you may arrive at last." - Benjamin Collins Brodie, fully Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
"The existence of a Being endowed with intelligence and wisdom is a necessary inference from a study of celestial mechanics." - Isaac Newton, fully Sir Isaac Newton
"No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which they took no interest. For it is part of education to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude." - T. S. Eliot, fully Thomas Sterns Eliot
"Recipe for success: Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing." - William A. Ward, fully William Arthur Ward
"Men who enter the service of the State should make it their chief study to set out in the world with some notable act which may strike the imagination of the people, and cause themselves to be discussed." - Cardinal de Retz, Jean Francois-Paul de Gondil
"Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already. But I observe that this satisfaction is limited to one’s own ratiocination, and does not extend to that of other men." - C. S. Peirce, fully Charles Sanders Peirce
"The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom." - Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow
"No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters." - Edgar Degas, born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas
"Study the historian before you begin to study the facts." - Edward Hallet "Ted" Carr
"For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death. " - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
"When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger. " - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL
"There is but one quality necessary for the perfect understanding of character, one quality that, if man have it, he may dare to judge—that is, omniscience. Most people study character as a proofreader pores over a great poem: his ears are dulled to the majesty and music of the lines, his eyes are darkened to the magic imagination of the genius of the author; that proofreader is busy watching for an inverted comma, a misspacing, or a wrong font letter. He has an eye trained for the imperfections, the weaknesses." - William George Jordan
"To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
"If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its founder and its first apostles." - Max Müller, fully Friedrich Max Müller
"There will be no room, here, for the smug myopia which views American civilization as the final solution to all world problems; which recommends our institutions for universal adoption and turns away with contempt from the serious study of the institutions of peoples whose civilizations may seem to us to be materially less advanced." - George F. Kennan
"I see the clouds part slowly, and I hear a cry of protest against the bigot. The restraining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor, and the humanist utters a message of peace to the persecuted. Instead of the cry, "Burn the heretic!" men study the human soul with sympathy, and there enters into their hearts a new reverence for that which is unseen." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller
"Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination, proclaims the voice of thy inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety - no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth. " - Immanual Hermann Fichte
"The scrutiny of human nature on a small scale is one of the most dangerous of employments; the study of it on a large scale is one of the safest and truest." - Isaac Taylor
"Education is the cultivation of the mind so that action is not self-centred; it is learning throughout life to break down the walls which the mind builds in order to be secure, and from which arises fear with all its complexities. To be rightly educated, you have to study hard and not be lazy. Be good at games, not to beat another, but to amuse yourself. Eat the right food, and keep physically fit. Let the mind be alert and capable of dealing with the problems of life, not as a Hindu, a Communist, or a Christian, but as a human being. To be rightly educated, you have to understand yourself; you have to keep on learning about yourself. When you stop learning, life becomes ugly and sorrowful. Without goodness and love, you are not rightly educated." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Not alone to know, but to act according to thy knowledge, is thy destination,--proclaims the voice of my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions of piety,--no, for action was existence given thee; thy actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth." - J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte
"Biology occupies a position among the sciences both marginal and central. Marginal because, the living world, constituting only a tiny and very 'special' part of the universe, it does not seem likely that the study of living beings will ever uncover general laws applicable outside the biosphere. But if the ultimate aim of the whole of science is indeed, as I believe, to clarify man's relationship to the universe, then biology must be accorded a central position, since of all the disciplines it is the one that endeavours to go most directly to the heart of the problems that must be resolved before that of 'human nature' can even be framed in other than metaphysical terms. " - Jacques Monod
"The study of history is the beginning of political wisdom." - Jean Bodin
"The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind. You should never trifle with Nature. " - Louis Agassiz, fully Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz
"The deep study of nature is the most fruitful source of mathematical discoveries. By offering to research a definite end, this study has the advantage of excluding vague questions and useless calculations; besides it is a sure means of forming analysis itself and of discovering the elements which it most concerns us to know, and which natural science ought always to conserve. " - Joseph Fourier, fully Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
"The profound study of nature is the most fertile source of mathematical discovery." - Joseph Fourier, fully Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
"Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The objective of skilled agency and collaboration in the study of the human condition is to achieve not unanimity, but more consciousness. And more consciousness always implies more diversity." - Jerome Bruner, fully Jerome Seymour Bruner
"The purpose of our study is that God may reveal Itself as our individual consciousness: I am the Word become flesh. The beginning of wisdom is when we draw our attention away from the outer world, from the world of effect or appearance, and begin to realize that power is not in it, but in me. All power is given unto me. I have dominion over everything that appears in the world of effect." - Joel S. Goldsmith, fully Joel Solomon Goldsmith
"Experience demonstrates that of any number of children of equal intellectual powers, those who receive no particular care in infancy, and who do not begin to study till the constitution begins to be consolidated, but who enjoy the benefit of a good physical education, very soon surpass in their studies those who commenced earlier, and who read numerous books when very young." - Johann Spurzheim, fully Johann Gaspar Spurzheim or Kaspar or Caspar
"There is a strong temptation to assume that presenting subject matter in its perfected form provides a royal road to learning. What more natural than to suppose that the immature can be saved time and energy, and be protected from needless error by commencing where competent inquirers have left off? The outcome is written large in the history of education. Pupils begin their study of science with texts in which the subject is organized into topics according to the order of the specialist. Technical concepts, with their definitions, are introduced at the outset. Laws are introduced at a very early stage, with at best a few indications of the way in which they were arrived at. The pupils learn a "science" instead of learning the scientific way of treating the familiar material of ordinary experience." - John Dewey
"All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield." - John Milton
"A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind. " - John Maynard Keynes
"I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." - John Quincy Adams
"An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy. " - J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
"The flight from study and awareness is much too common in a world that throws too many confusing pictures to the individual. For the sake of our democracy, based on freedom and individualism, we have to bring ourselves back to study again and again. Otherwise, we can become easy victims of a well-planned verbal attack on our minds and our consciences." - Joost Meerloo. fully Joost Abraham Maurits Meerlo
"The continual intrusion into our minds of the hammering noises of arguments and propaganda can lead to two kinds of reactions. It may lead to apathy and indifference, the I-don't-care reaction, or to a more intensified desire to study and to understand. Unfortunately, the first reaction is the more popular one." - Joost Meerloo. fully Joost Abraham Maurits Meerlo