This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder
The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
We see that in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of groups of men. It is great, also, very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against fortuitous change, against storm and accident. Our life contains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance. But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste. We have squandered a great part of what we might have used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature, without which our genius for enterprise would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be careful, shamefully prodigal as well as admirably efficient. We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual cost to the men and women and children upon whom the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years through. The groans and agony of it all had not yet reached our ears, the solemn, moving undertone of our life, coming up out of the mines and factories, and out of every home where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat. With the great Government went many deep secret things which we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless eyes. The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.
Age | Duty | Excitement | Little | Nothing | Search | Afraid |
Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
I have a sense of power in dealing with men collectively which I do not always feel in dealing with them singly... One feels no sacrifice of pride necessary in courting the favor of an assembly of men such as he would have to make in seeking to please one man.
Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age. - It degrades parts and learning, obscures the luster of every accomplishment, and sinks us into contempt. - The path of falsehood is a perplexing maze. - One artifice leads on to another, till, as the intricacy of the labyrinth increases, we are left entangled in our own snare.
You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.
Good | Honor | Hope | Mistake | Present | Reputation | Success |
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; and that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice; cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation; the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character; the other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of happiness perfectly chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and in fact depress our joys by endeavoring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity with which the world would allure us, religion confers upon us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid, more equal, and more lasting.
Action | Attention | Character | Competition | Enemy | Enjoyment | Foresight | Industry | Life | Life | Mind | Pleasure | Present | Prudence | Prudence | Wealth | World | Youth | Youth |
This earth is a garden, this life a banquet, and it's time we realized that it was given to all life, animal and man, to enjoy.
Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden
If you look at the data, the inner city that was the riot zone lost 55,000 jobs in the ten years from 1992 to 2002, instead of gaining a surplus of 50,000.
They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.
Change | Future | Past | Present | Right | Service | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |
We have deprived ourselves of that liberty of transposition in the arrangement of words which the ancient languages enjoyed.
Duty | Gentleness | Nature | Reflection | Sense |
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Instead of hiding our heads in a prayer cloth and building walls against desire, why not get better at fulfilling desire?
Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins
Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning or an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that question is: 'Who knows how to make love stay?'
Art | Enough | Land | Magic | Pleasure | Present | Religion | Science | Time | Art |
And for I know she taketh most delight In music, instruments, and poetry, Schoolmasters will I keep within my house, Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio, Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such, Prefer them hither, for to cunning men I will be very kind, and liberal To mine own children in good bringing-up.
Cunning | Entertainment | Man | Music | Present |
Can’t help it? Nonsense! What we are is up to us. Our bodies are like gardens and our willpower is like the gardener. Depending on what we plant—weeds or lettuce, or one kind of herb rather than a variety, the garden will either be barren and useless, or rich and productive. If we didn’t have rational minds to counterbalance our emotions and desires, our bodily urges would take over. We’d end up in ridiculous situations. Thankfully, we have reason to cool our raging lusts. In my opinion, what you call love is just an offshoot of lust. Othello, Act I, Scene 3
Better | Care | Duty | Fear | Flattery | Little | Lord | Man | Men | Mind | Time | Will | Words | Following |
But to my mind, — though I am native here and to the manner born, — it is a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance. Hamlet, Act i, Scene 4
Boys | Experience | Pleasure | Present | Time |
What we did not imagine was a Web of people, but a Web of documents.
Care | Future | Responsibility | World |