This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The idea that science can and should be organized according to rules both fixed and universal is unrealistic and pernicious.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
It is not true that men are better in poverty than in wealth.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Women and young people develop their separate estimates of their tastes.
Appearance | Blame | Justice | Law | Order | Rights | Rule | Universe |
Laws which are in advance of public sentiment are generally but a dead letter.
Law | Uncertainty |
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation.
Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus
The lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period be much better instructed then they are at present; they may be taught to employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at the ale-house; they may live under better and more equal laws than they have hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive it possible, though not probable, that they may have more leisure; but it is not in the nature of things, that they can be awarded such a quantity of money or substance, as will allow them all to marry early, in the full confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for a numerous family.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible. By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse.
Government | Individual | Law | Little | Government | Privilege |
On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.
Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen
Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of life.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document: it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age
Boldness | Business | Difficulty | Law | Business |
Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.
Administration | Example | Excellence | Government | Justice | Law | Man | Obscurity | Obscurity | Poverty | Public | Reward | Rivalry | Excellence | Government |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
The type of the Inevitable is death. I remember well that in my youth I believed that I was certainly exempt from its operation. First when my daughter died, next when you were wounded, I knew that I was mortal; and now I regard those years as wasted, as unproductive, in which I was not aware that my death was certain, nay, momently possible. I can now appraise at a glance those who have not yet foreseen their death. I know them for the children they are. They think that by evading its contemplation they are enhancing the savor of life. The reverse is true: only those who have grasped their non-being are capable of praising the sunlight.
Consciousness | Law | Little |
Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
Law |
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, to comfort thee, though thou art banished. Romeo and Juliet (Friar Laurence at III, iii)
Law |
Muslim women do not regard Islam as an obstacle to their progress; indeed, many may see it as a crucial component of that progress.
Appreciation | Cause | Diversity | Justice | Law | Question | Tradition | Understanding | Appreciation |