This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
This is the city, and I am one of the citizens. Whatever interests the rest interests me
Confidence | Will |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me... I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid, it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol... Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness.
Confidence | People | Spirit | Tyranny |
Religion, patriotism, race and sex are the favorite red herrings of foul political method – they are the most successful because they explode so easily and flood the mind with those unconscious prejudices which make critical thinking difficult. The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on.
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. The calculation of intrinsic value, though, is not so simple. As our definition suggests, intrinsic value is an estimate rather than a precise figure, and it is additionally an estimate that must be changed if interest rates move or forecasts of future cash flows are revised.
Confidence | Will | Worth |
I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated. And this is when I see that this life is a miracle, absolutely worth having, absolutely worth saving. We are alive within mystery, by miracle.
And in some of the people of the town and community surrounding it, one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were somewhere else.
W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden
History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
Change | Children | Church | Courage | Events | Men | Parents | Power | Public | Religion | Revolution | Time | Will | World | Learn |
W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer
The topics and treatment of the mathematics syllabus should be determined by the following principles: a. The course must be enjoyable and generate steadily increasing enthusiasm in the pupils, b. It should develop independence and activity of mind, curiosity, observation, and confidence, c. It should make pupils familiar with the basic ideas and processes of mathematics.
Children | Confidence | Life | Life | Mathematics | Truth | Will | Value |
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
I need to become beautiful, become remarkable, become unforgettable, become someone’s everything.
Impression | Lying | Method | Need | Respect | Time | Respect |
Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
The passions are the winds that fill the sails of the vessel. - They sink it at times; but without them it would be impossible to make way. - Many things that are dangerous here below, are still necessary.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone.
Confidence | Faith | Man | Think |
It is easy to see how adolescence becomes so frustrating, and old age so abhorrent, to many people. The life line is disempowered at two major points: at the beginning and at the end. The only acceptable place is in the middle. Power is conferred only on adults. It is denied to youth and seniors.
Families and societies are small and large versions of one another. Both are made up of people who have to work together, whose destinies are tied up with one another. Each features the components of a relationship: leaders perform roles relative to the led, the young to the old, and male to female; and each is involved with the process of decision-making, use of authority, and the seeking of common goals.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such- be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, t
Better | Confidence | Desire | Enough | Hope | Life | Life | Money | Need | Passion | Time | Will | Work | Trouble | Learn | Think |
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
And I will now rock the brown basin from side to side so that my ships may ride the waves. Some will founder. Some will dash themselves against the cliffs. One sails alone. That is my ship. It sails into icy caverns where the sea-bear barks and stalactites swing green chairs. The waves rise, their crests curl; look at the lights on the mastheads. They have scattered, they have foundered, all except my ship which mounts the wave and sweeps before the gale and reaches the islands where the parrots chatter and then the creepers.
Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf
All the same that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park...then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! -- that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all.