This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform he plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill he treasures up his bright designs, and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
I have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern society is - the enormous prosperity of Fools.
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
Time, animals, and buildings wear out with years, and submit to their hard lot. Time only meets with flat contradiction when he ventures to tell a woman that she is growing old.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
The Ministry in all denominations are the poorest paid workers in the world. They would form a union and demand more pay, but they don’t get enough to pay dues into a union so they can’t form one.
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.
Convention | Opinion | People |
Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers
The platform will always be the same, promise everything, deliver nothing.
Vice |
Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg
The most difficult problem - concerning the use of the language arises in quantum theory. Here we have at first no simple guide for correlating the mathematical symbols with concepts of ordinary language: and the only thing we know from the start is the fact that our common concepts cannot be applied o the structure of the atoms.
Vice |
Revolutions are not made, they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.
Opinion |
Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers
Now, the Communists recognized at once (or, more probably, after they had stirred things up a bit) that Senator McCarthy is a political godsend.
Change | Effort | Grace | Individual | Mind | Opinion | Thought | Thought |
Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing
Cynicism | Entertainment | Experience | Good | Happy | Little | Method | Morality | Satire | Story | Style | Virtue | Virtue | Wickedness |
A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger. In this case, the destruction or killing of the object is the biologically purposeful goal. The original motive is not pleasure in destruction. Rather the destruction serves the “life instinct”…and is an attempt to avoid anxiety and to preserve the ego in its totality. I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live.
Despise | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Opinion | Power | Promise | Question | Right | World | Afraid | Think |
Those who are truly alive are kindly and unsuspecting in their human relationships and consequently endangered under present conditions. They assume that others think and act generously, kindly and helpfully, in accordance with the laws of life. This natural attitude, fundamental to healthy children as well as primitive man, inevitably represents a great danger in the struggle for a rational way of life as long as the emotional plague subsists, because the plague-ridden impute their own manner of thinking and acting to their fellow men. A kindly man believes that all men are kindly, while one infected with the plague believes that all men lie and cheat and are hungry for power. In such a situation, the living are at an obvious disadvantage. When they give to the plague-ridden they are sucked dry, then ridiculed or betrayed.