This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We have more indolence in the mind than in the body.
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
Ability |
It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
There is no accident so disastrous that a clever man cannot derive some profit from it; nor any so fortunate that a fool cannot turn it to his disadvantage.
As soon as the words were out, sorry. Was preferable to the man considered extremely being a woman, as no other. It should not have to show any of it or another, it is imperfect, vulnerable person like everyone else. If you know that wearing a heart of glass, it will break.
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
She was twenty-one, pretty but brittle and wax-like from steam-heated air. All day long she was just an appearance, a rhythm: in studio or ballroom she expanded into delicate shapes like a Japanese ‘mystery’ flower dropped into water.
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
Thomas proceeded conversationally like the impeccable dentist with an infinitesimally fine instrument, choosing his area, tapping within it nearer and nearer, withdrawing at a suggestion before there had been time for a wince. He specialized in a particular kind of friendship with that eight-limbed, inscrutable, treacherous creature, the happily-married couple; adapting himself closely and lightly to the composite personality. An indifference to, an apparent unconsciousness of, life in some aspects armored him against embarrassments. As Janet said, he would follow one into one’s bedroom without noticing. Yet the too obvious ‘tact’, she said, was the literal word for his quality. Thomas was all finger-tips.
Discretion | Display | Old |
Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown
How old were you when you first realized that your parents were human? That they were not omnipotent, that what they said did not, in fact, go, they had dreams and feelings and scars? Or have you not realized that yet? Do you still call your parents and have a one-sided conversation with them, child to parent, not adult to adult?
Ability |
Om Namah Shivaya, meaning, I honor the divinity that resides within me.
I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself!!
Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Those who are beloved cannot die, because love means immortality.
The first thing that we have to realize is a fact of fundamental importance, because it means breaking away from all the ordinary prepossessions of orthodoxy. The plain fact is that Jesus taught no theology whatever. His teaching is entirely spiritual or metaphysical. Historical Christianity, unfortunately, has largely concerned itself with theological and doctrinal questions which, strange to say, have no part whatever in the Gospel teaching. It will startle many good people to learn that all the doctrines and theologies of the churches are human inventions built up by their authors out of their own mentalities… There is absolutely no system of theology of doctrine to be found in the Bible; it simply is not there.
Ability | Birth | Care | Consciousness | Debt | Determination | Discovery | Life | Life | Power | Time | Will | Wisdom | Discovery | Child |
Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have prosperity no matter what your present circumstances may be. You can have health and physical fitness. You can have a happy and joyous life. You can have a good home of your own. You can have congenial friends and comrades. You can have a full, free, joyous life, independent and untrammeled. You can become your own master or your own mistress. But to do this you must definitely seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly and firmly for the port that you intend to make.
Ability | Absolute | Acquaintance | Action | Attention | Delay | Difficulty | Faith | God | Harmony | Man | Means | Mind | Need | Peace | Power | Prayer | Quiet | Struggle | Time | Truth | Will | Trial | God | Child | Think |
Erich Segal, fully Erich Wolf Segal
Please, if one of us cries, let both of us cry. But preferably neither of us.
Voluntary cultures that work this way are not actually uncommon; one other in which I have long participated is science fiction fandom, which unlike hackerdom explicitly recognizes egoboo (the enhancement of one's reputation among other fans) as the basic drive behind volunteer activity.
Ability | Beauty | Ugly | Beauty | Understand |
Estelle R. Ramey, born Stella Rosemary Rubin
Maleness is a biological risk factor.