This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
But there is always a beautiful way to say everything. Nothing so cuts into one's heart as a mis-spoken word that falls clumsily. Rarely, perhaps, the hurt was meant at all. Nevertheless when a word has gone from the lips, it cannot be recalled. Yours may go, but so long as memory lives, the scar of a mis-spoken word may remain.
I. L. Peretz, fully Isaac Leib Peretz, aka Yitskhok Leybush Pertez
A people's memory is history. A people without a history can grow neither wiser nor better.
Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
Intelligence belongs to the watching consciousness; memory belongs to the mind. Memory is one thing -- memory is not intelligence. But the whole of humanity has been deceived for centuries and told indirectly that the memory is intelligence. Your schools, your colleges, your universities are not trying to find your intelligence; they are trying to find out who is capable of memorizing more. And now we know perfectly well that memory is a mechanical thing. A computer can have memory, but a computer cannot have intelligence.
Dada Vaswani, born Jashan Pahalraj Vaswani
I must never forget that every thought I think, every word I utter, every action I perform, every feeling, every emotion that wakes up in me, is recorded in the memory of nature. I might be able to deceive those around me, I may even succeed in deceiving myself. But I cannot deceive nature.
Play for young children is not recreation activity,... It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity.... Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met.
Body | Children | Language | Memory | Mind | Play | Recreation | Thinking | Time | Child |
John Yepes “Saint John of the Cross”
The soul that is clouded by the desires is darkened in the understanding and allows neither the sun of natural reason nor that of the supernatural Wisdom of God to shine upon it and illumine it clearly... At the same time, when the soul is darkened in the understanding, it is benumbed also in the will, and the memory becomes dull and disordered in its dire operation. The intellect cannot get the illumination of God’s wisdom, the will cannot get the love of God, and the memory cannot get God’s image... Darkness and coarseness will always be with a soul until its appetites are extinguished. The appetites are like a cataract on the eye or specks of dust in it; until removed they obstruct vision... The affections and appetites deprive them of a treasure of divine light... Any appetite, even one that is but slightly imperfect, stains and defiles the soul.
Darkness | God | Love | Memory | Reason | Soul | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | God | Intellect |
John Yepes “Saint John of the Cross”
If the memory is annihilated, the devil is powerless, and it liberates us from a lot of sorrow, affliction and sadness.
Affliction | Devil | Memory |
A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.
Memory |
F. D. Maurice, fully John Frederick Denison "F.D." Maurice
The Lord's Prayer may be committed to memory quickly, but it is slowly learnt by heart.
As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.
Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski
Life knows us not and we do not know life—-we don’t know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow.
Faith | Folly | Hope | Man | Meaning | Memory | Myth | Words |
Religious rights, and religious liberty, are things of inestimable value. For these have many of our ancestors suffered and died; and shall we, in the sunshine of prosperity, desert that glorious cause, from which no storms of adversity or persecution could make them swerve? Let us consider if as a duty of the first rank with respect to moral obligation, to transmit to our posterity, and provide, as far as we can, for transmitting, unimpaired, to the latest generations, that generous zeal for religion and liberty, which makes the memory of our forefathers so truly illustrious.
Adversity | Duty | Memory | Rank | Religion | Respect | Zeal | Respect |
Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
Six Declines of Modern Youth: Decline of Fitness due to modern methods of locomotion [moving about];Decline of Initiative and Enterprise due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; Decline of Memory and Imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life; Decline of Skill and Care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; Decline of Self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of stimulants and tranquilizers; And worst of all: Decline of Compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted or as William Temple called "spiritual death".
Care | Compassion | Disease | Haste | Imagination | Initiative | Life | Life | Memory | Restlessness | Skill | Tradition |
Lewis Carroll, pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
Memory |