This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Inferiority is always with us, and merciless scorn of it is the keynote of the military temper." - William James
"Now in all of us, however constituted, but to a degree the greater in proportion as we are intense and sensitive and subject to diversified temptations, and to the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic, does the normal evolution of character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying of the inner self. The higher and the lower feelings, the useful and the erring impulses, begin by being a comparative chaos within us — they must end by forming a stable system of functions in right subordination. Unhappiness is apt to characterize the period of order-making and struggle." - William James
"Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way." - William James
"Procrastination is attitude's natural assassin. There's nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task" - William James
"Seek out that particular mental attitude which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, "This is the real me," and when you have found that attitude, follow it." - William James
"So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation." - William James
"Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting." - William James
"The most general elements and workings of the mind are all that the teacher absolutely needs to be acquainted with for his purposes." - William James
"The stream of thought flows on; but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory survives the instant of their passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures." - William James
"There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly." - William James
"This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic, agnostic, or naturalistic scheme of philosophy. Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet. In the practical life of the individual, we know how his whole gloom or glee about any present fact depends on the remoter schemes and hopes with which it stands related. Its significance and framing give it the chief part of its value. Let it be known to lead nowhere, and however agreeable it may be in its immediacy, its glow and gilding vanish. The old man, sick with an insidious internal disease, may laugh and quaff his wine at first as well as ever, but he knows his fate now, for the doctors have revealed it; and the knowledge knocks the satisfaction out of all these functions. They are partners of death and the worm is their brother, and they turn to a mere flatness." - William James
"God seeth different abilities and frailties of men, which may move His goodness to be merciful to their different improvements in virtue." - William Law
"This useful, charitable, humble employment of yourselves is what I recommend to you with greatest earnestness, as being a substantial part of a wise and pious life." - William Law
"You are to honor, improve, and perfect the spirit that is within you: you are to prepare it for the kingdom of heaven, to nourish it with the love of God and of virtue, to adorn it with good works, and to make it as holy and heavenly as you can." - William Law
"You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them -- especially at such times as they are not inconvenient to your state or temper or occurrences in life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it." - William Law
"Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed into fellowship — but not before. Go back again, then, and while you live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives — men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labor needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness." - William Morris
"I have the utmost respect for them. It was formed at the time of great violence and danger, particularly for African-American lawyers." - William Morris
"I too will go, remembering what I said to you, when any land, the first to which we came seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame, and all seemed won to you: but still I think, perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink, unless by some ill chance I first am slain. But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain." - William Morris
"If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream." - William Morris
"It seems to me that the sense of beauty in the external world, of interest in the life of man as a drama, and the desire of communicating this sense of beauty and interest to our fellows is or ought to be an essential part of the humanity of man, and that any man or set of men lacking that sense are less than men, and lack a portion of their birthright just as they were blind or deaf." - William Morris
"Meanwhile the dragon, seeing him clean gone, followed him not, but crying horribly, caught up within her jaws a block of stone and ground it into powder, then turned she, with cries that folk could hear far out at sea, and reached the treasure set apart of old, to brood above the hidden heaps of gold." - William Morris
"Nay, spring was o'er-happy and knew not the reason, and summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended in her fulness of wealth that might not be amended; but this is the harvest and the garnering season, and the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended." - William Morris
"Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung." - William Morris
"This was the very limit beyond which none of them had ever speculated, or even known that there was any speculation to be done." - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?" - Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams
"Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a golden rule through life: Never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself." - Douglas William Jerrold
"The worst of it is, dullness is catching." - Douglas William Jerrold
"Ability wins us the esteem of the true men: luck that of the people." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
"It has become a conviction with me that psychology may in the long run do much to change the conception of the fundamental nature of the religious life, which, on the whole, is now too generally made a matter of doctrine. It is too intellectual At the doors of most churches one is met by required beliefs in a particular conception of God, in a speculative theory about the divinity of Christ, definite ideas concerning sin and salvation, the efficacy of ordinances, and the claims of supernatural revelation. What people are really seeking is access to refreshing fountains of life, sources of strength and guidance. They crave association with people and institutions which may convey to them a sense of what is most worthwhile in life and what may furnish impulsion toward real and enduring values. They know pretty well what those values are when allowed to let their own deepest desires express themselves." - Edward Scribner Ames
"One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises." - Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL
"As Yin and Yang are not of the same nature, so man and woman have different characteristics. The distinctive quality of the Yang is rigidity; the function of the Yin is yielding. Man is honored for strength; a woman is beautiful on account of her gentleness. Hence there arose the common saying: "A man though born like a wolf may, it is feared, become a weak monstrosity; a woman though born like a mouse may, it is feared, become a tiger."" - Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban
"Deal impartially with the legal complaints which are submitted to you. If the man who is to decide suits at law makes gain his motive, and hears cases with a view to receiving bribes, then the suits of the rich man will be like a stone flung into water, meeting no resistance, while the complaints of the poor will be like water thrown upon a stone. In these circumstances the poor man will not know where to go, nor will he behave as he should." - Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya
"Punish the evil and reward the good. This was the excellent rule of antiquity. Therefore do not hide the good qualities of others or fail to correct what is wrong when you see it. Flatterers and deceivers are a sharp weapon for the overthrow of the state, and a sharp sword for the destruction of the people. Men of this kind are never loyal to their lord, or to the people. All this is a source of serious civil disturbances." - Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya
"His genius, it is true, was of a peculiar kind; the genius of character, of thought, and the objects of thought solidified and concentrated into active faculty. He belongs to that rare class of men--rare as Homers and Miltons, rare as Platos and Newtons--who have impressed their characters upon nations without pampering national vices. Such men have natures broad enough to include all the facts of a people's practical life, and deep enough to discern the spiritual laws which underlie, animate, and govern those facts." - Edwin Percy Whipple
"If you would know yourself, take yourself as starting point and go back to its source; your beginning will disclose your end." - Egyptian Proverbs
"Through the years of my trance communications and research, two control personalities... have always been identified with my work, and they have never ceased to maintain their independent and separate selves. It is interesting to note that they have always welcomed every form of scientific investigation into the nature of their own being and the mechanisms of my supernormal functioning; but up to the present any efforts to dislodge them or to reduce them to aspects of my own consciousness have led to no change in their attitude, position, or state of being. The control personalities still maintain the roles they have always played in relation to me, since my trance work began. I have reached a point in my development where I can live in harmony with myself and at peace with those personalities, for I am now able to regard them as the finer aspects of my true self. Whatever their origin may be, I do not, at present, have at my command the means of knowing; but for the time being, I am content to accept the controls as aspects of a constructive principle upon which my entire life has been built." - Eileen Garrett
"You will not mind if I say that where there is unhappiness in a house and there is an impression of someone [i.e. a departed spirit] coming back, it is because you make for that spirit a Garden of Memory in which it can live and revive its sufferings. Unless you are, consciously or unconsciously, in a state of mind in which this impression can vivify itself, you will not be troubled. Haven't you discovered that these things only happen to you when you are in a bad emotional state, physically or mentally disturbed? Don't you realize that you yourself vivify this memory?" - Eileen Garrett
"A person who deprives himself of health by injuring himself is considered a sinner." - Eleazar ha-Kappar, alternate spelling Eliezer ha-Kappar
"It's never too late to ask yourself, Am I ready to change your life? Am I willing to change from the inside? It's really a shame if a single day in your life is the same as the previous one. In every moment, with every breath should be updated again and again." - Elif Safak
"Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot." - Elihu Root
"We aim to give a 'wake-up call' to businesses, to alert them to the fact that the next 'fair-haired boy' of their organization just might be a woman." - Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole
"Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?" - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"If I am truly to become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian...I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"in stillness, I watched myself get eaten by mosquitoes... the itch was maddening at first but eventually it just melded into a general burning feeling and I rode that heat to a mild euphoria. I allowed the pain to lose its specific associations and become pure sensation... and that eventually lifted me out of myself and into meditation." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"It all comes down to one simple question: Do you want your belly pressed against this person's belly forever--or not?" - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Marriage is a game. They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules. We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules. And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"Offer it up personally, then. Right now. I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer-you can finish the business yourself, from within yourself. It's not only possible, it's essential." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"People are inherently inclined to believe that happiness is a matter of luck if you is written will happen as the good weather. But happiness does not work like that. Happiness is the result of the efforts of man. You fight for it, strive for it, demanding it, and sometimes even go looking for him in the world. Must participate consistently in the manifestations of your own happiness. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you never have to get sloppy in maintaining it, you must make great efforts to swim against the tide of that happiness forever, to stay on the surface. If you do not, you'll spill their intrinsic satisfaction. It's easy to pray when you're in trouble, but to keep praying even when the crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul be firmly held down to its good performance." - Elizabeth Gilbert