This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I think the truth must now be obvious that our people are too happy at home to enter into regular service, and that we cannot be defended but by making every citizen a soldier, as the Greeks and Romans who had no standing armies; and that in doing this all must be marshaled, classed by their ages, and every service ascribed to its competent class.
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Principles | Surrender | Wealth |
There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.
They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
We concur in considering the government of England as totally without morality, insolent beyond bearing, inflated with vanity and ambition, aiming at the exclusive dominion of the sea, lost in corruption, of deep-rooted hatred towards us, hostile to liberty wherever it endeavors to show its head, and the eternal disturber of the peace of the world. In our estimate of Bonaparte, I suspect we differ… Our form of government is odious to him, as a standing contrast between republican and despotic rule; and as much from that hatred, as from ignorance in political economy, he had excluded intercourse between us and his people, by prohibiting the only articles they wanted from us, that is, cotton and tobacco. Whether the war we have had with England, and the achievements of that war, and the hope that we may become his instruments and partisans against that enemy, may induce him, in future, to tolerate our commercial intercourse with his people, is still to be seen. For my part, I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep our markets open for what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
He was simply not a hero, which is to say, he did not let his relationship with the man be determined by the woman.
Aesthetic | Consecration | Gold | Greed | Society | Society |
People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all. They can only conceive one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off from other people and building a barrier of contrast and distinction between themselves and other men. They do not know that reality is to be sought not in division but in unity, for we are ‘members one of another.’
Avarice | Children | Cruelty | Doubt | Evil | God | Grace | Greed | Human race | Love | Lust | Men | Oppression | Peace | Race | Sin | Wills | Cruelty | God | Think |
It is sometimes discouraging to see how small the peace movement is, and especially here in America where it is most necessary. But we have to remember that this is the usual pattern, and the Bible has led us to expect it. Spiritual work is done with disproportionately small and feeble instruments.. And now above all when everything is so utterly complex, and when people collapse under the burden of confusions and cease to think at all, it is natural that few may want to take on the burden of trying to effect something in the moral and spiritual way, in political action. Yet this is precisely what has to be done.
Avarice | Children | Cruelty | Doubt | Evil | God | Grace | Greed | Human race | Love | Lust | Man | Mercy | Oppression | Peace | People | Race | Sin | Wills | Cruelty | God | Think |
Humility is a virtue, but immodesty is a vice. A modest person is always judicious and intelligent. He always behaves humbly before a more learned person so that he can learn from him. The guru lays bare his heart before him. He believes that his disciple will remain obedient and continue to be grateful and serve him throughout his life; he will glorify his name. Against this, immodest person remains stupid. He always believes that he is worthless. Due to his inferiority complex, he loses all hopes of progress. He does not learn, even if guru wishes to teach him lovingly. He is lazy. He is like unnecessary weight for himself and others. He cannot even stand to admonishments. He is not ashamed of repeated wrongs committed by him. “I cannot do anything!” This thought only pervades his mind. That is why the learned say that if you want to progress in life, be humble.
Greed |
Willard L. Sperry, fully Willard Learoyd Sperry
For the unconquerable mind. We give You thanks, O God, for the harvest of knowledge, patiently gathered over long years by ongoing generations of scholars, and now laid up for the needs of humanity in our universities. For the increasing mastery of special skills, for victory over ills which people have suffered through ignorance, for confidence in the reliable order of nature, for the wisdom which long experience adds to much learning, for ever new light falling on old mysteries, as for all the joys of our part and portion in the unconquerable mind: we give thanks.
Contempt | Love | Neglect | Waste | Wealth | Worship | Forgive |
Willard C. Butcher, fully Willard Carlisle Butcher
High premiums are being paid today not particularly for quality service or long-term building of a business but rather for making money quickly, getting rich, and getting out. And that's wrong.
Wealth |
A Fable - A raven, while with glossy breast Her new-laid eggs she fondly press'd, And, on her wicker-work high mounted, Her chickens prematurely counted (A fault philosophers might blame, If quite exempted from the same), Enjoy'd at ease the genial day; 'Twas April, as the bumpkins say, The legislature call'd it May. But suddenly a wind, as high As ever swept a winter sky, Shook the young leaves about her ears, And fill'd her with a thousand fears, Lest the rude blast should snap the bough, And spread her golden hopes below. But just at eve the blowing weather And all her fears were hush'd together: And now, quoth poor unthinking Ralph. 'Tis over, and the brood is safe; (For ravens, though, as birds of omen, They teach both conjurors and old women To tell us what is to befall, Can’t prophesy themselves at all.) The morning came, when neighbour Hodge, Who long had mark'd her airy lodge, And destined all the treasure there A gift to his expecting fair, Climb’d like a squirrel to his dray, And bore the worthless prize away. Moral: 'Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours: Safety consists not in escape From dangers of a frightful shape; An earthquake may be bid to spare The man that’s strangled by a hair. Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oft’nest in what least we dread, Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
It is in your character of Prime Minister that I take the liberty of prefixing your Lordship's name to this “Tale of Irish Famine”. Had Sir Robert Peel been in office, I would have placed his name where that of your Lordship now stands. There is something not improper in this; for although I believe that both you and he are sincerely anxious to benefit our unhappy country, still I cannot help thinking that the man who in his ministerial capacity, must be looked upon as a public exponent of those principals of Government which have brought our country to her present calamitous condition, by a long course of illiberal legislation and unjustifiable neglect, ought to have his name placed before a story which details with truth the sufferings which such legislation and neglect have entailed upon our people.
Example | Literature | Man | Men | Thought | Truth | Wealth | World | Talent | Thought |
This cabin, Mary, in my sight appears, built as it has been in our waning years, a rest afforded to our weary feet, preliminary to - the last retreat.
Wealth |
If hindrances obstruct the way, thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: but o, if fortune fill thy sail with more than a propitious gale, take half thy canvas in.
Wealth |