This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Idleness is a constant sin, and labor is a duty. Idleness is the devil's home for temptation and for unprofitable, distracting musings; while labor profiteth others and ourselves.
Devil | Duty | Idleness | Labor | Sin | Temptation | Wisdom | Temptation |
To the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. As a man is, so he sees.
To some people a tree is something so incredibly beautiful that it brings tears to the eyes. To others it is just a green thing that stands in the way.
A complete moral philosophy would tell us how and why we should act and feel towards others in relationships of shifting and varying power asymmetry and shifting and varying intimacy.
Philosophy | Power | Wisdom |
Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne
Restrictions by others chain the mind; by oneself, paralyze it.
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
Age | Enough | Family | Father | Isolation | Mother | Nature | People | Security | Wisdom | World |
Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England
The confirmed prejudices of the thoughtful life, are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as most must trifle away age, because they trifled away youth, others must labor on the maze of error, because they have wandered there too long to find their way.
Age | Change | Error | Labor | Life | Life | Wisdom | Youth |
What is Zen in the art of helping? It is easier to say what it is not than more positively to describe the essence. It is to avoid the boosting of the ego through ‘good works’. It is to aid oneself and others in the pursuit of the good life; to discover and uncover new vigour and freshness in the art of living; to uncover the primal ability of love. Living in the here and now is a major ingredient.
Ability | Aid | Art | Ego | Good | Life | Life | Love | Wisdom | Zen | Art |
Niels Bohr, fully Aage Niels Bohr
One of the favorite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two sorts of truths, profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
Absurd | Contrast | Distinction | Father | Maxims | Truth | Wisdom | Truths |
Brown v. Board of Education NULL
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Getters generally don't get happiness; givers get it. You simply give to others a bit of yourself - a thoughtful act, a helpful idea, a word of appreciation., a lift over a rough spot, a sense of understanding, a timely suggestion. You take something out of your mind, garnished in kindness out of your heart, and put it into the other fellow's mind and heart.
Appreciation | Heart | Kindness | Mind | Sense | Understanding | Wisdom |
Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others - this is my criterion of goodness. And whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it - this is my measure of iniquity.
Individual | Society | Wisdom | Society | Happiness |
Any class is all right if it will only let others be so.
In every visible Creature there is a Body and a Spirit... or, more Active and more Passive Principle, which may fitly be termed Male and Female, by reason of that Analogy a Husband hath with his Wife. For as the ordinary Generation of Men requires a Conjunction and Co-operation of Male and Female; so also all Generations and Productions whatsoever they be, require an Union, and conformable Operation of those Two Principles, to wit, Spirit and Body; but the Spirit is an Eye or Light beholding its own proper Image, and the Body is a Tenebrosity or Darkness receiving that Image, when the Spirit looks thereinto, as when one sees himself in a Looking-Glass; for certainly he cannot so behold himself in the Transparent Air, nor in any Diaphanous Body, because the reflexion of an Image requires a certain opacity or darkness, which we call a Body: Yet to be a Body is not an Essential property of any Thing; as neither is it a Property of any Thing to be dark; for nothing is so dark that nothing else, neither differs any thing from a Spirit, but in that it is more dark; therefore by how much the thicker and grosser it is become, so much the more remote it is from the degree of Spirit, so that this distinction is only modal and gradual, not essential or substantial.
Body | Darkness | Distinction | Husband | Light | Looks | Men | Nothing | Principles | Property | Reason | Spirit | Wife | Wisdom | Wit |
Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins
We neither (never) know nor judge ourselves; others may judge, but cannot know us; God alone judges, and knows too.
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need. It performs some great service, not for itself, but for others or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.