This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
To know all is to forgive all. No commonplace is more untrue. Behavior, whether conditioned by an individual neurosis or by society, can be understood, that is to say, one knows exactly why such and such an individual behaves as he does. But a personal action or deed is always mysterious. When we really act, precisely because it is a matter of free choice, we can never say exactly why we do this rather than that. But it is only deeds that we are required to forgive. If someone does me an injury, the question of forgiveness only arises if I am convinced (a) that the injury he did me was a free act on his part and therefore no less mysterious to him than to me, and (b) that it was me personally whom he meant to injure. He knows as well as they do why they are doing this -- they are a squad, detailed to execute a criminal. They do not know what they are doing, because it is not their business, as executioners, to know whom they are crucifying. If the person who does me an injury does not know what he is doing, then it is as ridiculous for me to talk about forgiving him as it would be for me to forgive a tile which falls on my head in a gale.
W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky
When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and, in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against the Jews and against the heretics.
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi
Morally, the life of the organization must be of exemplary nature. This is one phase where the organization must not have criticism.
Greatness | Humility | Meekness | Qualities | Simplicity |
Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
Have you ever been nice to someone in order to keep him in your life, only to see him suddenly turn against you? Being nice to someone, pleasing him, has no influence whatever in changing his nature from bad to good. It is useless and unnecessary to try to change others, for nature-change must include self-change. You will never again waste your days or be betrayed if you remember that you have no real need for a harmful or sour man or woman.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
Achievement | Change | Guilt | Opportunity | Optimism | Reason | Suffering | Tragedy |
A person who is respectful towards his land, civilization and language, attains greatness and he acquires all the happiness of life. His deeds should be such that makes the motherland, the culture and language proud.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours — a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God — and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly — not miserably — knowing how to die.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response.
Accomplishment | Challenge | Chance | Circumstances | Failure | Greatness | Life | Life | Majority | Men | Opportunity | People | Words | Failure | Think |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it.
Capacity | Competition | Good | Guilt | Joy | Will | Work | Child |
Sincerity is no test of truth - no evidence of correctness of conduct. - You may take poison sincerely believing it the needed medicine, but will it save your life?
Guilt | Responsibility |
As yet, we Americans have hardly begun to think of the details of execution in any art. We do not aim at perfection of detail even in engineering, much less in literature. In the haste of our national life, most of our intellectual work is done at a rush, is something inserted in the odd moments of the engrossing pursuit. The popular preacher becomes a novelist; the editor turns his paste-pot and scissors to the compilation of a history; the same man must be poet, wit, philanthropist, and genealogist. We find a sort of pleasure in seeing this variety of effort, just as the bystanders like to see a street-musician adjust every joint in his body to a separate instrument, and play a concerted piece with the whole of himself. To be sure, he plays each part badly, but it is such a wonder he should play them all! Thus, in our rather hurried and helter-skelter training, the man is brilliant, perhaps; his main work is well done; but his secondary work is slurred. The book sells, no doubt, by reason of the author’s popularity in other fields; it is only the tone of our national literature that suffers. There is nothing in American life that can make concentration cease to be a virtue. Let a man choose his pursuit, and make all else count for recreation only. Goethe’s advice to Eckermann is infinitely more important here than it ever was in Germany: “Beware of dissipating your power; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.”
Daring | Emotions | Expectation | Intuition | Language | Life | Life | Passion | Sound | Expectation |
An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character, and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a policy.
Courage | Daring | Decision | Generosity | Pleasure | Present | Will | Hardship | Friends |