This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne
Most people are dissatisfied, because too few know that the distance between one and nothing is greater than that between one and a thousand.
To him in whom loves dwells, the whole world is but one family.
The mind is everything. What we think, we become.
Harry Blackmun, fully Harold "Harry" Andrew Blackmun
With our finite minds we cannot presume to know if there is a Purpose. We sense, however, the presence of something greater than we can comprehend, a force as yet unknown to us - perhaps even to be unknown. So we accept our situation, learn from it, and do the best we can, resting on faith, despair, or cynicism, depending on the individual. Overriding all this must be an obligation - self-imposed or externally impressed - to do the best one can for others, to relieve suffering and to exercise compassion. We are all in this together, for life is a common, not an individual, endeavor.
Character | Compassion | Cynicism | Despair | Faith | Force | Individual | Life | Life | Obligation | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Sense | Suffering | Learn |
Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL
It is one thing to be carried through an endless life, another thing to embrace the whole presence of an endless life together, which is manifestly proper to the divine Mind. The temporal world seems to emulate in part that which it cannot fully obtain or express, tying itself to whatever presence there is in this exiguous and fleeting moment - a presence which, since it carries a certain image of that abiding Presence, gives to whatever may partake of it the quality of seeming to have being. But because it could not stay, it undertook an infinite journey of time; and so it came to pass that, by going, it continued that life, whose plenitude it could not comprehend by staying.
In love one has need of being believed, in friendship of being understood.
Character | Love | Need | Friendship |
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
Habit is not mere subjugation, it is a tender tie; when one remembers habit it seems to have been happiness.
Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun
The average child is an almost non-existent myth. To be normal one must be peculiar in some way or another.
He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.
Character | Recompense | Success |
Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu
Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
Be a lamp unto yourselves! Work out your liberation with diligence! Fill your mind with compassion!
Industry is not only the instrument of improvement, but the foundation of pleasure. He who is a stranger to it may possess, but cannot enjoy; for it is labor only which gives relish to pleasure. It is the appointed vehicle of every good to man. It is the indispensable condition of possessing a sound mind in a sound body.
Body | Character | Good | Improvement | Indispensable | Industry | Labor | Man | Mind | Pleasure | Sound |