This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce, And dost not know the garment from the man; Every harlot was a virgin once, Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan. Tho’ thou art worship’d by the names divine Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still The Son of Morn in weary Night’s decline, The lost traveller’s dream under the hill.
Darkness | Death | Doubt | Dreams | Eternal | Evil | Father | Good | Haste | Ignorance | Man | Shame | Virtue | Virtue |
And what else is the cause of all transgression, but that man's ignorant pride will have his will preferred to the will of God.
Haste |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
Rooted in freedom, bonded in the fellowship of danger, sharing everywhere a common human blood, we declare again that all men are brothers, and that mutual tolerance is the price of liberty.
Resignation - Why, why repine, my pensive friend, at pleasures slipp'd away? Some the stern Fates will never lend, and all refuse to stay. I see the rainbow in the sky, the dew upon the grass; I see them, and I ask not why they glimmer or they pass. With folded arms I linger not to call them back; 'twere vain: in this, or in some other spot, I know they'll shine again.
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.
Better | Bourgeoisie | Brutality | Church | Gold | Government | Haste | Lesson | Means | Order | People | Principles | Property | Sense | Struggle | Sympathy | Wealth | Will | Work | Government | Think |
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
We must not depict socialism as if socialists will bring it to us on a plate all nicely dressed. That will never happen. Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters — then we are for it!
Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The truth about Kolchak (and his double, Denikin) has now been revealed in full. The shooting of tens of thousands of workers. The shooting even of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The flogging of peasants of entire districts. The public flogging of women. The absolutely unbridled power of the officers, the sons of landowners. Endless looting. Such is the truth about Kolchak and Denikin.
Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh
I am risking my life for my work, and half my reason has gone.
And whatever he did, he always fell back onto this paradox at the core of his thought. To remain in paradise and become a demon! To re-enter hell and become an angel!
Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.
Advice | Body | Genius | Haste | Important | Life | Life | Literature | Man | Nothing | Perfection | Play | Pleasure | Popularity | Reason | Recreation | Wonder | Work | Think |
I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of hoplites, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or money in the Peloponnesus, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to oppose the Sicilian horse.
But cruel are the times when we are traitors and do not know ourselves, when we hold rumor from what we fear, yet know not what we fear, but float upon a wild and violent sea each way and move. Macbeth, Act iv, Scene 2
Haste |
Let us suppose a man to be engaged in the progressive voluptuousness of the most sensual scene. Here, if ever, we may expect sensation to be triumphant. Passion is in this case in its full career. He impatiently shuts out every consideration that may disturb his enjoyment; moral views and dissuasives can no longer obtrude themselves into his mind; he resigns himself, without power of resistance, to his predominant idea. Alas, in this situation, nothing is so easy as to extinguish his sensuality! Tell him at this moment that his father is dead, that he has lost or gained a considerable sum of money, or even that his favorite horse is stolen from the meadow, and his whole passion shall be instantly annihilated: so vast is the power which a mere proposition possesses over the mind of man. So conscious are we of the precariousness of the fascination of the senses that upon such occasions we provide against the slightest interruption. If our little finger ached, we might probably immediately bid adieu to the empire of this supposed almighty power. It is said to be an experiment successfully made by sailors and persons in that class of society, to lay a wager with their comrades that the sexual intercourse shall not take place between them and their bedfellow the ensuing night, and to trust to their veracity for a confession of the event. The only means probably by which any man ever succeeds in indulging the pleasures of sense, in contradiction to the habitual persuasion of his judgment, is by contriving to forget everything that can be offered against them. If, notwithstanding all his endeavors, the unwished for idea intrudes, the indulgence instantly becomes impossible. Is it to be supposed that the power of sensual allurement, which must be carefully kept alive, and which the slightest accident overthrows, can be invincible only to the artillery of reason, and that the most irresistible considerations of justice, interest and happiness will never be able habitually to control it?
Our hearts deceive us, because we leave them to themselves, are absent from them, taken up in outward rules and forms of living and praying. But this kind of praying, which takes all its thoughts and words only from the state of our hearts, makes it impossible for us to be strangers to ourselves. The strength of every sin, the power of every evil temper, the most secret workings of our hearts, the weakness of any or all our virtues, is with a noonday clearness forced to be seen, as soon as the heart is made our prayer book, and we pray nothing, but according to what we read, and find there.
Distinction | Glory | God | Grace | Haste | Man | Nature | Piety | Religion | Service | Spirit | Will | God | Old |
Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true delicacy is solid refinement.
Haste | Obligation |