This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork
In the past few decades American institutions have struggled with the temptations of politics. Professions and academic disciplines that once possessed a life and structure of their own have steadily succumbed, in some cases almost entirely, to the belief that nothing matters beyond politically desirable results, however achieved.
Belief | Character | Life | Life | Nothing | Past | Politics |
There can be no progress - real, moral progress - except in the individual and by the individual himself.
Character | Individual | Progress | Wisdom |
Wernher von Braun, fully Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun
Part of human nature resents change, loves equilibrium, while another part welcomes novelty, loves the excitement of disequilibrium. There is no formula for the resolution of this tug-of-war, but it is obvious that absolute surrender to either of them invites disaster.
Absolute | Change | Character | Excitement | Human nature | Nature | Novelty | Resolution | Surrender | War |
Yitzchok Blauser, aka Reb Itzelle Peterburger
A truth-seeker will not check to see if a person who admonished him is worthy or not. Rather, he weighs the complaint to see if it is valid or not.
If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
Character | Man | Perception |
Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL
It is one thing to be carried through an endless life, another thing to embrace the whole presence of an endless life together, which is manifestly proper to the divine Mind. The temporal world seems to emulate in part that which it cannot fully obtain or express, tying itself to whatever presence there is in this exiguous and fleeting moment - a presence which, since it carries a certain image of that abiding Presence, gives to whatever may partake of it the quality of seeming to have being. But because it could not stay, it undertook an infinite journey of time; and so it came to pass that, by going, it continued that life, whose plenitude it could not comprehend by staying.
Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun
The ability to make love frivolously is the thing which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.
He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.
Character | Recompense | Success |
We never love heartily but once, and that is the first time we love.
The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation, of vegetation, is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the permanent realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature.
Body | Character | Death | Eternal | Eternity | Imagination | Nature | World |
Yosef Leib Bloch, fully R' Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch
Try to become as great as you can. Some people are afraid to accomplish because they might make mistakes and those mistakes will be more serious than if they remained simple. This is not valid reasoning. Each person is obligated to develop himself to the best of his ability. The smallest person has potential for greatness if he utilizes all that is within him.