This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Russell H. Conwell, fully Russell Herman Conwell
The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
Man | Opportunity |
Any sandpiper is great in his own swamp. (It is easy to brag of your deeds in familiar surroundings where you are safe from danger and not likely to be put to proof)
Good | Opportunity |
No goal is too high if we climb with care and confidence.
Day | Giving | Joy | Opportunity |
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
Wherefore, I exhort you, when we receive children from the nurse, let us not accustom to old wives’ stories, but let them learn from their first youth that there is a Judgment, that there is a punishment; let it be infixed in their minds. This fear being rooted in them produces great good effects. For a soul that that has learnt from its first youth to be subdued by this expectation will not soon shake off this fear. But like a horse obedient to the bridle, having the thought of hell seated upon it, walking orderly, it will both speak and utter things profitable; and neither youth nor riches, not an orphan state, not any other thing, will be able to injure it, having its reason so firm and able to hold out against everything.
God | Good | Opportunity | God |
I would rather him to bear patiently with it than to put himself in danger of a greater evil.
Opportunity | Service | Will |
What a reason the Company has for observing its Rules faithfully: to do what the Son of God came into the world to do! That there should be a Company, and that it should be the Company of the Mission, composed of poor men, and that it should be entirely dedicated to that purpose, going here and there through hamlets and villages, leaving the towns behind-something that’s never been done-and going to announce the Gospel only to persons who are poor; yet, those are our Rules!
Any one may say that the organizations of labor invade or deny liberty to the workmen. But go to the men who worked in the bituminous coal mines twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, for a dollar or a dollar and twenty five cents, and who now work eight hours a day and whose wages have increased 70 per cent. in the past seven years -- go tell those men that they have lost their liberty and they will laugh at you.
Better | Children | Effort | Ignorance | Life | Life | Man | Opportunity | Spirit | Worth |
I beg to say in reply that if it be decided by both the colored and white workers of your city [Austin] that it would tend to the best interests of the movement to organize separate central bodies there is no reason why such a course should not be pursued.
Authority | Effort | Improvement | Law | Men | Opportunity | Guilty |
It is true we did not defeat as many men as we should like to have done, but I want to tell you what we did. We put the fear of God into them. We cut down their majorities, we cut down their pluralities. . . . Our opponents will not be so arrogant toward the representatives of labor as they have been in the past.
Men | Object | Opportunity | Organization | Present | Receive | Time |
We are proud of the country which we claim as our own; we are proud of its history, proud of its heroes and proud of its traditions, and we hope as we struggle for its glorious future. But we maintain that patriotism does not mean the hatred of our neighbor. Nor do we believe that it is a wise policy, as some would advocate, that a foreign war might be a good cure for our domestic evils.
Art | Duty | Life | Life | Opportunity | Peace | Practice | Skill | World | Art |
There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.
Doubt | Knowledge | Labor | Opportunity | Truth |
Of course the children of immigrants go to school, and after a few years they become Americanized. But how about the grown-up persons, the adults? Who makes an effort to Americanize them? The labor organization. . . . We have done more to help establish somewhat of a conception of Americanism amongst the emigrants to our country than any other agency of which I know.
Avarice | Children | Defense | Hope | Mankind | Opportunity | Recreation | Wealth | Will |
The World War in which we are engaged in is on such a tremendous scale that we must readjust practically the whole nation's social and economic structure from a peace to a war basis. It devolves upon liberty-loving citizens, and particularly the workers of this country, to see to it that the spirit and the methods of democracy are maintained within our own country while we are engaged in a war to establish them in international relations. The fighting and the concrete issues of the war are so removed from our country that not all of our citizens have a full understanding of the principles of autocratic force which the Central Powers desire to substitute for the real principles of freedom.
Collusion | Conduct | Determination | Future | Half-truth | Influence | Labor | Little | Opportunity | People | Policy | Purpose | Purpose | Qualities |
I do not for a moment entertain the belief that by our simple declaration that we shall make friends of the negro laborers. Their previous condition, their former absolute dependence upon their masters (and now their employers) have deprived them of learning that it is necessary for them to rely upon themselves and upon each other, but I am confident that if organized workingmen will take a more liberal view of the situation, or rather a more practical view, that the negro workman will to a very much greater extent make common cause with us in our struggles. . . [The negro] is a living fact and a factor and regardless of all the prejudices that may be entertained he must be counted with and the way to count with him is the question that must be considered.
Care | Discussion | Doubt | Enough | Force | Opportunity | Position | Question | Rights | Will | Wisdom |
In America, the labor movement stands behind the government, and behind President Wilson. We stand behind him not because he is president, but because he is right and because he is a spokesman for freedom and democracy for all the nations of the world.
Civilization | Cultivation | Man | Opportunity | Service | Soul | Wealth | Woman | Work |
I have no objection to the people of any country coming to America, Chinese excepted (I am not so sentimental as all that), provided they come here of their own free will, and not influenced by deception.
The wages of women in manufactures are often less in proportion than the amount appropriated by the state for the support of convicts in the penitentiary.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence - an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.
Change | Diligence | Indolence | Nothing | Opportunity | Rest |