This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The Gods of the earth and sea sought through nature to find this tree. But their search was all in vain: there grows one in the human brain.
Fortune |
If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies. . . . It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.
Fortune | Magnanimity | Strength |
Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather
To be sure, the Bishop was a little theatrical in his humility, as he had been in his grandeur; but that was his way, Auclair reflected, and, after all, nobody can help his way. If a man admits his mistakes, that is a great deal...
Experience | Feelings | Fortune | Little | Sense |
A peasant who is unburdened by debt and has an adequate holding is the freest and most independent man among us; neither food problems nor the threat of unemployment need worry him and the subjection to the moods of nature which he exchanges for that of the market and the business cycle, usually ennobles a man instead of embittering him. His life, from whatever angle we view it, is the most satisfying, the richest and the most complete in terms of human needs.
Abstract | Fortune | Good | Individual | Knowing | Society | Spirit | Society |
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
We'd go down and play the best team. It would be fun for me and Bill to play the champions. And it might spur them on some.
Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an
I say there are no principles but those of the mind, and nothing exists apart from the mind.
Blessings | Distinguish | Earth | Evil | Fortune | Good | Heaven | Intelligence | Man | Men | Will |
Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha
We've used derivatives for many, many years. I don't think derivatives are evil, per se, I think they are dangerous. ...So we use lots of things daily that are dangerous, but we generally pay some attention to how they're used. We tell the cars how fast they can go.
Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL
But mathematicians, disputing on the other side, have said that the number called six is perfect for the reason that this number has divisions which agree by their proportions with the number six. Thus a sixth is one; a third is two; a half is three; two-thirds, which they call dimoeros, four; five-sixths, which they call pentemoeros, five; the perfect number, six. When it grows to the double, a twelfth added above six makes ephectos; when eight is reached, because a third is added, there is a second third, which is called epitritos; when half is added and there are nine, there is half as much again, and it is called hemiolios; when two parts are added and a decad is made, we have the second two-thirds, which they call epidimoeros; in the number eleven, because five are added, we have five-sixths, which they call epipemptos; twelve, because it is produced from two simple numbers, they call diplasios.
Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL
The architect must not only understand drawing, but music.
Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
I put a gentle hand to my chest as I surveyed the situation. The turquoise blue swimming pool some distance behind the lawn was no longer behind that lawn, but within my thorax, and my organs swam in it like excrements in the blue sea water in Nice.
Fortune |
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Command large fields, but cultivate small ones.
Fortune |
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Do you believe the enemy have sailed away? Or think that any Grecian gifts are free of craft? Is this the way Ulysses acts? Either Achaeans hide, shut in this wood, or else this is an engine built against our walls... I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.
Fortune |
Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL
A thousand people cannot convince one by words to the extent that one person can convince a thousand by action.
Dedication | Fortune | Good | Government | Law | Work | Government |
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Every man has his appointed day; life is brief and irrevocable; but it is the work of virtue to extend our fame by our deeds.
Fortune |
Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL
Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.
Fortune |
Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious