This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
He who has no opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others is a slave.
A wise man will select his books, for he would not wish to class them all under the sacred name of friends. Some can be accepted only as acquaintances. The best books of all kinds are taken to the heart, and cherished as his most precious possessions. Others to be chatted with for a time, to spend a few pleasant hours with and laid aside, but not forgotten.
Books | Heart | Man | Possessions | Sacred | Time | Will | Wisdom | Wise |
There is gold in the golden rule for the man who does not estimate others by the rule of gold.
Gold | Golden Rule | Man | Rule | Wisdom | Golden Rule |
This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
Compensation | Freedom | God | Wisdom | World |
Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann
Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
Wisdom |
Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck
We are never the same with others as when we are alone; we are different, even, when we are in the dark with them.
Wisdom |
Karl Marx (1818-1883) German Philosopher, Socialist and Friedrich Engels
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.
André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog
A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems to be too short.
Conversation | Happy | Marriage | Wisdom |
The best way to come to truth being to examine things as really they are, and not to conclude they are as we fancy of ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man should always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding. If his own prowess fails to compare with theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it.
Cynics are only happy in making the world as barren for others as they have made it for themselves.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Conversation | Wisdom |
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.