This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
My reluctance to enter into religious controversies has never been the result of fear or weakness, however. I may say that I did not start examining my religion only yesterday. Indeed, early on, I recognized it as a duty to examine my opinions and acts, and if, since my youth, I have dedicated my leisure hours to worldly wisdom and the humanities, it was solely with the intention of preparing myself for this necessary [self-] examination. I could have had no other motives for this. In my situation I could not expect the slightest temporal advantage from such studies. I knew well that I could not prosper in worldly affairs in this way. And as for pleasure? Therefore, as you see, had I lacked a sincere belief in my own religion, the result of my inquiries would have made itself visible in a public act. But because [those inquiries] strengthened me in my fathers' [religion], I was able to continue quietly on my way without having to account for my convictions to the world.
Belief | Convictions | Duty | Fear | Intention | Leisure | Motives | Public | Religion | Wisdom |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Friendship is a very taxing and arduous form of leisure activity.
Leisure |
Medicine is a strange mixture of speculation and action. We have to cultivate a science and to exercise an art. The calls of science are upon our leisure and our choice the calls of practice are of daily emergence and necessity.
Choice | Leisure | Practice | Science | Speculation |
Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt
I now realize that education is a last wild effort on the part of the authorities to prevent an overdose of leisure from driving the world mad. Learning is no longer an improver; it is merely the most expensive time-filler the world has ever known.
Ennius, fully Quintus Ennius NULL
He who knows not how to use his leisure has more work than when he is working at work.
Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler
The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.
Long toil and short leisure are part of the heavy price we pay for our North American standard of living. It is reputed to be the highest in the world, and so it should be, for it is bought at an inordinate price.
Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL
We make Idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of wonder.
Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
Art is the conveyance of spirit by means of matter.
Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo
The criminal excesses of unlimited capitalistic liberty had soon been checked thanks to the unlimited liberty of the press.
What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
Better | Books | Childhood | Consideration | Fate | Happy | Justice | Labor | Learning | Leisure | Society | Work | Fate | Society |
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity.
Improvement | Leisure |
Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband. Instead of bringing our sexual relationship to life again I brooded happily over memories of our former nights together.
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination.