This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things and happy in small ways.
True wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is uninstructive; without the latter it is deceptive.
Knowledge | Past | Perception | Wisdom |
Short, isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient wisdom delighted to convey its precepts for the regulation of human conduct.
Conduct | Regulation | Wisdom |
Holy, humble, penitent, believing, earnest, persevering prayer is never lost; it always prevails to the accomplishment of the thing sought, or that with which the suppliant will be better satisfied in the end, according to the superior wisdom of his heavenly father, in which he trusts.
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.
Experience | Life | Life | Wisdom |
Of all human pursuits the pursuit of wisdom is the most perfect, the most sublime, the most profitable, the most delightful.
Wisdom |
Whatever it is that we value in life – relationships, creativity, learning, aesthetic experience, food, sex, travel – the call to seize the day is the call to appreciate these things while we can and not to put them off indefinitely. Some things require work and time, and often the best choice is not to do today everything you want to do before you die. The true spirit of carpe diem is not to panic and try to do everything now, but to make sure every day counts. The wisdom of carpe diem is that time is short, this is the only life we have and we should not squander it.
Aesthetic | Choice | Creativity | Day | Experience | Learning | Life | Life | Panic | Spirit | Time | Wisdom | Work | Value |
The weak have remedies, the wise have joys; superior wisdom is superior bliss.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.