This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
The condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows.
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar, but a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his condition.
Control | Excellence | Justice | Opinion | Play | Public | Reason | Restraint | Spirit | Excellence | Talent |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now.
Art | Literature | Man | Obligation | Right | Sense | Spirit | Study | Will | Instruction | Art | Leadership |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests.
Action | Confidence | Fear | Life | Life | Obligation | Security | Sense | Spirit | Time |
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
She had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed though a long servitude, though its own self-hatred, though mockery, though great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.
Work |
Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
There is no question what the roll of honor in America is. The roll of honor consists of the names of men who have squared their conduct by ideals of duty.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American.
Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden
I think people are entitled to march without a permit. When you have a few hundred thousand people on the street you have permission.
The evil mouth of men, breaks the rod of iron. (Gossip will kill the best reputation.)
Now hear the trumpets' clangor from afar, and all the dreadful harmony of war.
Spirit |
Timothy Dwight, fully Timothy Dwight IV
The ever varying brilliancy and grandeur of the landscape, and the magnificence of the sky, sun, moon and stars, enter more extensively into the enjoyment of mankind than we, perhaps ever think, or can possibly apprehend, without frequent and extensive investigation. This beauty and splendor of the objects around us, it is ever to be remembered, is not necessary to their existence, nor to what we commonly intend by their usefulness. It is therefore to be regarded as a source of pleasure, gratuitously super-induced upon the general nature of the objects themselves, and in this light, a testimony of the divine goodness, peculiarly affecting.
A fourth rule for constructing sentences with proper strength is to make the members of them go on rising and growing in their importance above one another. This sort of arrangement is called a climax, and is always considered as a beauty in composition.