This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.
It is the little things in life that are the sublime things. It is the minor parts of the great drama which make up the whole. The handclasp, the smile, the words of confidence or encouragement; these are the strength and bulwark of society, business, religion - and home life. Without them, there would be no trust; without trust, our world would collapse.
Business | Confidence | Life | Life | Little | Religion | Smile | Society | Strength | Trust | Wisdom | Words | World |
The pyramidal effect is essential to all the arts - the effect of starting from the level, rising to the supreme height, and sinking back to the original level again. This in truth is the meaning of key in music; in art, as in life, the secret of happiness is first of all to get as far away from home as you can, and then get back to your home: every work of art is a sort of Prodigal Son, that learns to appreciate the fixed point in space as in ethics, by straying from it.
Art | Ethics | Life | Life | Meaning | Music | Space | Truth | Wisdom | Work | Art | Happiness |
There’s a scheme of evasion that has gotten into everybody. It’s as though people were to say: “I get home dog tired after a terrible day out in that jungle, and then I don’t want to think about it. Enough! I want to be brainwashed. I’m going to have my dinner and drink some beer, and I’m going to sit watching TV until I pass out – because that’s how I feel.” That means people are not putting up a struggle for the human part of themselves.
Day | Enough | Evasion | Means | People | Struggle | Think |
You can no more measure a home by inches, or weigh it by ounces, than you can set up the boundaries of a summer breeze, or calculate the fragrance of a rose. Home is the love which is in it.
William Barrett, fully William Christopher Barrett
The decline of religion in modern times means simply that religion is no longer the uncontested center and ruler of man’s life., and that the church is no longer the final and unquestioned home and asylum of his being.
Fidel Castro, fully Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
Whoever hesitates while waiting for ideas to triumph among the masses before initiating revolutionary action will never be a revolutionary. Humanity will, of course, change. Human society will, of course, continue to develop – in spite of men and the errors of men. But that is not a revolutionary attitude.
Action | Change | Humanity | Ideas | Men | Society | Waiting | Will | Society |
If we want the perfect host to take us into his eternal home when we come to knock at his door, he has told us himself what we have to do: we must be ready to open our own door to the earthly guests that come our way.
God is waiting for us to stop waiting and begin to do now all the things for which this day was made.
The school system can’t make up for family failure. The total education of our children is a cooperative effort requiring community solidarity. Apathetic parents who foster a permissive home atmosphere create a problem for everyone.
Children | Education | Effort | Failure | Family | Parents | System |
Religion is a quiet dimension of daily living; it is not a spectacular explosion.
Prayer in action; it requires complete mobilization of heart, mind, and soul… For the soul, home is where the prayer is... Prayer calls for self-reflection, for contrition and repentance, examining and readjusting deeds and motivations, for recanting the ugly compulsions we follow, the tyranny of acquisitiveness, hatred, envy, resentment.
Action | Deeds | Envy | Heart | Mind | Prayer | Reflection | Repentance | Resentment | Self | Soul | Tyranny | Ugly | Deeds |
Sentient species think (to the extent that this is possible for their species) and act rationally most of the time. To do otherwise reduces the species chances of survival because their home (the universe) is rationally (i.e., causally) constructed. The universe’s causality binds thinking, language and intelligence together.
Intelligence | Language | Survival | Thinking | Time | Universe | Think |