This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.
Consciousness | Father | Freedom | Justify | Nothing | Solitude | Child |
It is the beginning of the worst moment. All of the flood barriers are at their maximum level.
Good | Manners | People | Principles | Sense | Understanding | Politeness |
I cannot make decisions about things it is not proper for him to decide. He is merely putting in a good word for genuine peace, and for achieving it quickly.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
The need poisons the evils it cannot heal.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL
Fools do not understand men of intelligence.
Hung Tzu-ch'eng, also Hong Zicheng or Hóng Zìchéng, born Hong Yingming
Pull one hair and the whole body is affected.
To be good, we must do good and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.
Few men are more to be shunned than those who have time, but know not how to improve it, and so spend it in wasting the time of their neighbors, talking forever though they have nothing to say.
Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun
In the future, I hope all of you will look after yourselves and supervise yourselves. With such self-supervision, you will certainly succeed one day.
Doubt | Principles |
Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman
The fact that no two major countries have done to war since they both got McDonald’s is partly due to economic integration, but it is also due to the presence of American power and America’s willingness to use that power against those who would threaten the system of globalization–from Iraq to North Korea. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.[...] McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the US Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. And these fighting forces and institutions are paid for by American taxpayer dollars.
Age | Important | Influence | Parents | Principles | Thinking | Time | Woman | Teacher |
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.
Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous - not just to some people in some circumstances - but to everyone all the time.
I saw before me, sitting on the counter, a handsome, burly man, heavily built, and not looking, to my gymnasium-trained eye, in really good condition for athletic work. I perhaps felt a little prejudiced against him from having read ‘‘Leaves of Grass’’ on a voyage, in the early stages of seasickness,—a fact which doubtless increased for me the intrinsic unsavoriness of certain passages. But the personal impression made on me by the poet was not so much of manliness as of Boweriness, if I may coin the phrase. . . . This passing impression did not hinder me from thinking of Whitman with hope and satisfaction at a later day when regiments were to be raised for the war, when the Bowery seemed the very place to enlist them. . . . When, however, after waiting a year or more, Whitman decided that the proper post for him was hospital service, I confess to feeling a reaction, which was rather increased than diminished by his profuse celebration of his own labors in that direction. Hospital attendance is a fine thing, no doubt, yet if all men, South and North, had taken the same view of their duty that Whitman held, there would have been no occasion for hospitals on either side.
Better | Character | Important | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mission | Power | Risk | Parting |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.