This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I cannot make decisions about things it is not proper for him to decide. He is merely putting in a good word for genuine peace, and for achieving it quickly.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The need poisons the evils it cannot heal.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Fools do not understand men of intelligence.
Hung Tzu-ch'eng, also Hong Zicheng or Hóng Zìchéng, born Hong Yingming
Pull one hair and the whole body is affected.
To be good, we must do good and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.
Few men are more to be shunned than those who have time, but know not how to improve it, and so spend it in wasting the time of their neighbors, talking forever though they have nothing to say.
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.
Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous - not just to some people in some circumstances - but to everyone all the time.
I saw before me, sitting on the counter, a handsome, burly man, heavily built, and not looking, to my gymnasium-trained eye, in really good condition for athletic work. I perhaps felt a little prejudiced against him from having read ‘‘Leaves of Grass’’ on a voyage, in the early stages of seasickness,—a fact which doubtless increased for me the intrinsic unsavoriness of certain passages. But the personal impression made on me by the poet was not so much of manliness as of Boweriness, if I may coin the phrase. . . . This passing impression did not hinder me from thinking of Whitman with hope and satisfaction at a later day when regiments were to be raised for the war, when the Bowery seemed the very place to enlist them. . . . When, however, after waiting a year or more, Whitman decided that the proper post for him was hospital service, I confess to feeling a reaction, which was rather increased than diminished by his profuse celebration of his own labors in that direction. Hospital attendance is a fine thing, no doubt, yet if all men, South and North, had taken the same view of their duty that Whitman held, there would have been no occasion for hospitals on either side.
Better | Character | Important | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mission | Power | Risk | Parting |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.
Whatever purifies the heart also fortifies it.
Character | Sacred | Will | Friendship |
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; and that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice; cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation; the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character; the other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of happiness perfectly chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and in fact depress our joys by endeavoring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity with which the world would allure us, religion confers upon us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid, more equal, and more lasting.
Action | Attention | Character | Competition | Enemy | Enjoyment | Foresight | Industry | Life | Life | Mind | Pleasure | Present | Prudence | Prudence | Wealth | World | Youth | Youth |
True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to him who made us, and to the common nature which we all share. - It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and duty of men. - It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle.
I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same, or that they may always be expected to co-exist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart. At the same time, this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, moral and purifying.
Character | Imagination | Style |
Angels and ministers of grace defend us. Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, be thy intents wicked, or charitable, thou com'st in such a questionable shape, that I will speak to thee.