This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
And it is very much lamented, Brutus, that you have no such mirrors as will turn your hidden worthiness into your eye.
Ends |
But, orderly to end where I begun, our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown; our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. Hamlet, Act iii, Scene 2
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch; Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth; Between two blades, which bears the better temper; Between two horses, which doth bear him best; Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,— I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment; But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. King Henry VI. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
But old folks—many feign as they were dead, unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.
BENEDICK: I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEATRICE: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. Much Ado about Nothing, Act I, Scene 6
God | Happy | Heart | Love | Nothing | Protest | Will | World | God | Forgive |
Come on, poor babe, some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens to be thy nurses. Wolves and bears, they say, casting their savageness aside, have done like offices of pity.
Common Sense | Sense | Study | Will |
In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.
Mind |
Let us ask ourselves seriously and honestly, “What do I believe after all? What sort of manner of man am I after all? What sort of show should I make after all, if the people round me knew my heart and all my secret thoughts? What sort of show, then, do I already make in the sight of Almighty God, who sees every man exactly as he is?”
If he who employs coercion against me could mold me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.
That all things are possible to him who believes; that they are less difficult for him that hopes; that they are more easy to him that loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues.
Doubting things go ill often hurts more than to be sure they do; for certainties either are past remedies, or, timely knowing, the remedy then born. Cymbeline, Act i, Scne 6
Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness
'Reality' is a movie generated by our brains. Because we don't realize this, we are far too confident that the stuff appearing in the movie is actually 'out there' in the world when, in fact, it's not.
For these two reasons it is necessary that every man should stand by himself, and rest upon his own understanding. For that purpose each must have his sphere of discretion. No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and with out pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. He may exercise a republican boldness in judging, but he must not be peremptory and imperious in prescribing. Force may never be resorted to but, in the most extraordinary and imperious emergency. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service. I ought to appropriate such part of the fruits of the earth as by an accident comes into my possession, and is not necessary to my benefit, to the use of others; but they must obtain it from me by argument and expostulation, not by violence. It is in this principle that what is commonly called the right of property is founded. Whatever then comes into my possession, without violence to any other man, or to the institutions of society, is my property. This property, it appears by the principles already laid down, I have no right to dispose of at my caprice; every shilling of it is appropriated by the laws of morality; but no man can be justified, in ordinary cases at least, in forcibly extorting it from me. When the laws of morality shall be clearly understood, their excellence universally apprehended, and themselves seen to be coincident with each man's private advantage, the idea of property in this sense will remain, but no man will have the least desire, for purposes of ostentation or luxury, to possess more than his neighbors.
O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
Age | Chance | Disease | Good | Habit | Hate | Life | Life | Little | Luxury | People | Thinking | Time | Will | Learn | Think |
There is a lust in man no charm can tame: Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame: On eagles wings immortal scandals fly, while virtuous actions are born and die.
William Howells, fully William Dean Howells, aka The Dean of American Letters
Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.