This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The histories of mankind that we possess are histories only of the higher classes.
Eternal | Evil | Reason | Revelation | Will |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
We are now supposing the existence of a society where vice is scarcely known.
Evil | Individual | Little |
Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly
But O how slick and weasel-like is self-pride! Our learnedness creeps into our sermons with a clever quotation which adds nothing to God's glory, but a bit to our own. Our cleverness in business competition earns as much self-flattery as does the possession of the money itself. Our desire to be known and approved by others, to have heads nod approvingly about us behind our backs, and flattering murmurs which we can occasionally overhear, confirm the discernment in Alfred Adler's elevation of the superiority motive. Our status as "weighty Friends" gives us secret pleasures which we scarcely own to ourselves, yet thrive upon. Yes, even pride in our own humility is one of the devil's own tricks. But humility rests upon a holy blindedness, like the blindedness of him who looks steadily into the sun. For wherever he turns his eyes on earth, there he sees only the sun. The God-blinded soul sees naught of self, naught of personal degradation or of personal eminence, but only the Holy Will working impersonally through him, through others, as one objective Life and Power. But what trinkets we have sought after in life, the pursuit of what petty trifles has wasted our years as we have ministered to the enhancement of our own little selves! And what needless anguishes we have suffered because our little selves were defeated, were not flattered, were not cozened and petted! But the blinding God blots out this self and gives humility and true self-hood as wholly full of Him. For as He gives obedience so He graciously gives to us what measure of humility we will accept. Even that is not our own, but His who also gives us obedience. But the humility of the God-blinded soul endures only so long as we look steadily at the Sun. Growth in humility is a measure of our growth in the habit of the Godward-directed mind. And he only is near to God who is exceedingly humble. The last depths of holy and voluntary poverty are not in financial poverty, important as that is; they are in poverty of spirit, in meekness and lowliness of soul.
Body | Evil | Joy | Man | Mystery | Nature | Need | Obedience | Oblivion | Paradox | Soul | Suffering | World |
Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz
What the psychiatrist calls a “delusion of persecution” is one of the most dramatic human defenses against the feeling of personal insignificance and worthlessness. In fact, no one cares a hoot about Jones. He is an extra on the stage of life. But he wants to be a star.
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards.
The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest, but if it is judged worthy by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
We shall fight for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
Age | Agony | Beauty | Body | Children | Cost | Counsel | Diversity | Energy | Enough | Evil | Genius | Gold | Government | Helpfulness | Individual | Liberty | Life | Life | Men | Model | Riches | Strength | Struggle | Sympathy | System | Will | World | Riches | Government | Counsel | Beauty |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
He regarded love as a sort of cruel malady through which the elect are required to pass in their late youth and from which they emerge, pale and wrung, but ready for the business of living.
Aptitude | Conscience | Contempt | Conversation | Freedom | Memory | Talent |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.
Sow good and you'll reap good; sow bad and you'll reap bad. You don't have to cut down a tree to get its fruit.
The father may well be a horse, but it's most likely that the son will be a mule.
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Could the Cheerios be in bad voice? Might not they handle well on curves? Do they ejaculate too quickly? Has age affected their timing or are they merely in a mid-season slump? Afflicted with nervous exhaustion or broken hearts, are the Cheerios smiling bravely, insisting that the show must go on?
Beauty | Conscience | Efficiency | People | Sacrifice | Will | Beauty | Old |
Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise, The breath is gone whereof this praise is made. The Life of Timon of Athens (Flavius at II, ii)
Evil |