This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers
Love and trust, in the space between what’s said and what’s heard in our life, can make all the difference in the world.
Space |
Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.
The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.
F. A. Hayek, fully Friedrich August Hayek or von Hayek
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
Taste |
Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not.
If a person is capable of rectifying his erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence he is not prejudiced. Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge. A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it. We tend to grow emotional when a prejudice is threatened with contradiction. Thus the difference between ordinary prejudgments and prejudice is that one can discuss and rectify a prejudgment without emotional resistance.
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.
H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit. I myself deny it.
Men |
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Time is everything; five minutes make the difference between victory and defeat.
There is all of the difference in the world between paying and being paid.
World |
J. E. Buckrose, pseudonymn of Annie Edith Foster Jameson
There is this difference between depression and sorrow - sorrowful, you are in great trouble because something matters so much; depressed you are miserable because nothing really matters.
Depression | Nothing | Sorrow | Trouble |
Jane Goodall, fully Dame Jane Morris Goodall, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall
What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
In reality, the difference is, that the savage lives within himself while social man lives outside himself and can only live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the feeling of his own existence only from the judgment of others concerning him. It is not to my present purpose to insist on the indifference to good and evil which arises from this disposition, in spite of our many fine works on morality, or to show how, everything being reduced to appearances, there is but art and mummery in even honor, friendship, virtue, and often vice itself, of which we at length learn the secret of boasting; to show, in short, how abject we are, and never daring to ask ourselves in the midst of so much philosophy, benevolence, politeness, and of such sublime codes of morality, we have nothing to show for ourselves but a frivolous and deceitful appearance, honor without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness.
Art | Daring | Evil | Existence | Good | Honor | Indifference | Judgment | Man | Nothing | Opinion | Pleasure | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Receive | Art | Learn | Vice |
J.D. Salinger, fully Jerome David Salinger
The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.
Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do – any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.
Despair | Doctrine | Existence | Existentialism | God | Intention | Man | Means | Men | Non-existence | Nothing | Sense | God | Think | Understand |
There's all the difference in the world between having something to say, and having to say something.
World |