This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
As flowing rivers disappear in the sea, losing their name and form, thus a wise man, freed from name and form, goes to the divine person who is beyond all." Such a theory of life and death will not please Western man, whose religion is as permeated with individualism as are his political and economic institutions. But it has satisfied the philosophical Hindu mind with astonishing continuity.
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Perhaps our supercilious disgust with existence is a cover for a secret disgust with ourselves; we have botched and bungled our lives, and we cast the blame upon the environment or the world, which have no tongues to utter a defense. The mature man accepts the natural limitations of life; he does not expect Providence to be prejudiced in his favor; he does not ask for loaded dice to play the game of life. He knows, with Carlyle, that there is no sense in vilifying the sun because it will not light our cigars. And perhaps, if we are clever enough to help it, the sun will even do that; and this vast neutral cosmos may turn out to be a pleasant place enough if we bring a little sunshine of our own to help it out. In truth, the world is neither with us or against us; it is but raw material in our hands, and can be heaven or hell according to what we are.
Arrogance | Gentleness | Love | Quiet | Teach | Understanding | Will |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
If the public only knew that every writer worthy of the name is the severest critic of his own book before it ever gets into the hands of the reviewers, how surprised they would be!
Conspiracy | Quiet | Vengeance |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
Polo, racing and horse shows all are doing great work to help the farmer and rancher to raise better horses.
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.
Art | Desire | Heart | Life | Life | Office | Passion | Quiet | Work | Art | Old |
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it all that one must give up, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate! A contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be.
All of us must act selfishly to Iearn charity, must lie to learn honor, must betray and be betrayed to learn to value trust and commitment.
Office | Quiet | Companionship |
Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg
This has also appeared in the alternate form: What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Consequences | Knowledge | Nothing | System | Theoretical |
It is a poor species of human being which this grim vision conjures up before our eyes: 'fragmentary and disintegrated' man, the end product of growing mechanization, specialization, and functionalization, which decompose the unity of human personality and dissolve it in the mass, an aborted form of Homo sapiens created by a largely technical civilization, a race of spiritual and moral pygmies lending itself willingly--indeed gladly, because that way lies redemption--to use as raw material for the modern collectivist and totalitarian mass state.
Consequences | Consideration | Sacrifice | Sense | Society | Will | Society |
Psychic health depends on orgastic potency, i.e., upon the degree to which one can surrender to and experience the climax of excitation in the natural sexual act. It is founded upon the healthy character attitude of the individual’s capacity for love. Psychic illnesses are the result of a disturbance of the natural capacity for love.
Civilization | Consequences | Man |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
Quiet |
In my youth I hoped to do great things; now I shall be satisfied to get through without scandal.
Discretion | Mind | Power | Public | Quiet | Responsibility |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, 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, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.
Children | Day | Earth | Light | Men | Miracles | Nothing | Quiet | Space | Old |
Twenty years hence my eyes may grow if not quite dim, yet rather so, still yours from others they shall know twenty years hence. Twenty years hence though it may hap that I be called to take a nap in a cool cell where thunderclap was never heard. there breathe but o'er my arch of grass a not too sadly sighed alas, and I shall catch, ere you can pass, that winged word.
Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood of those who press earnestly upon it.
In a happy reign there should be no hermits; the wise and able should consult together... so you, a man of the eastern mountains, gave up your life of picking herbs and came all the way to the Gate of Gold -- but you found your devotion unavailing. ...To spend the Day of No Fire on one of the southern rivers, you have mended your spring clothes here in these northern cities. I pour you the farewell wine as you set out from the capital -- soon I shall be left behind here by my bosom-friend. In your sail-boat of sweet cinnamon-wood you will float again toward your own thatch door, led along by distant trees to a sunset shining on a far-away town...What though your purpose happened to fail, doubt not that some of us can hear high music.
Quiet |