This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"
When a man reproached Diogenes for going into unclean places he said, “The sun too penetrates into privies, but it is not polluted by them.”
Man |
Earle Birney, fully Earle Alfred Birney
The Sun never sets. It is we who rise think to shine.
Think |
Bigotry has no head and cannot think, no heart and cannot feel.
David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker
Happiness, she loves to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self sacrifice. She will be found not is palaces but lurking in cornfields and factories; and hovering over littered desks; she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child.
David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker
Happiness is a rebound from hard work. One of the follies of man is to assume that he can enjoy mere emotion. As well try to eat beauty. Happiness must be tricked. She loves to see men work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will not be found in the palaces, but lurking in cornfields and factories, and hovering over littered desks. She crowns the unconscious head of the busy child.
Beauty | Man | Men | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice | Will | Work | Happiness |
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
Better | Ends | God | Love | Men | Passion | Quiet | Soul | God | Old |
A young man, to achieve, must first get out of his head any notion either of the ease or rapidity of success. Nothing just happens in this world; everything is brought about. Success never comes to a man of its own volition; it will meet a man halfway, but it will never come to him all the way.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski
It is the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life - and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is ending, I know that very well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy.
Age | Day | Grief | Happy | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Mystery | Serenity | Soul | Old |
Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.
Nicholas Black Elk, formally Heȟáka Sápa
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop.
Childhood | Earth | Life | Life | Man | Power | Religion | World |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.